LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



No "Beginning" 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 



A common=sense exposure of the error in the rea- 
soning upon which is based the belief in a 
"Creation" or "First Cause" of things 



WILLIAM H. MAPLE 



Motion is as natural as rest 



CHICAGO 

CHARIyRS H. KERR AND COMPANY 

1892 



Y/^ 9*& ' 






Copyright, 1892, by Charles H. Kevv 



PREFACE 

To aid somewhat in the great struggle 
that reason is making to free mankind from 
that cumbrous cloak of superstition, fear 
and misery which it has inherited from past 
generations, and which still clings to the 
race like a frightful nightmare to a waking 
man — to the end that greater freedom of 
opinion and greater happiness may come to 
the whole people, is the object of this little 
volume. 

It is undoubtedly true that mankind will 
cease to be superstitious only in proportion 
as people come to understand the real 
causes of events in nature. It is equally 
certain that people generally will not strive 
to find natural causes for what occurs until 
they are convinced that such causes actually 
exist. It is, therefore, evident that the first 
step in the eradication of superstition is to 
have it understood that nature has her own 



4 PREFACE 

ways of doing things — and that her methods 
are inherent and invariable. 

As long as man is taught the doctrine of 
so-called special providences — is made to 
believe that supernatural beings are about 
him — he will suffer in a two-fold way ; he 
will be haunted with ill-grounded fears 
and, anon, be lulled into a feeling of secur- 
ity when real danger surrounds him. 

And it is because of such considerations 
as these that the thoughts in the following 
pages and the general truths established 
therein become at once both fundamental 
as truths and helpful from the standpoint 
of practical good. 

In pointing out the fundamental fallacy 
in the argument on which rests the doctrine 
of the "Creation" of the universe out of 
nothing, and its necessary corollary, the 
belief in the existence of a being or beings 
outside of nature, the great truths of the 
eternity of the substance of things, and of 
the existence in nature of adequate causes 
for all that occurs, have been made mani- 
fest. 

Thus the corner-stone of superstition has 



PEEFACE O 

been removed and at the same time an 
enduring basis for a rational system of 
ethics has been found. 

That the introductory part of the work is 
more lengthy than what follows will not 
surprise the reader when he is reminded 
that the formal argument of any proposition 
may be very brief — that prolixity is not 
indicative of tne strength of logical struct- 
ures. 

As the principal trouble in raising a great 
weight is the preparation and placing ] of 
suitable levers or other mechanical appli- 
ances, so in communicating a new truth, 
the greatest task is the preparation of the 
mind for its reception. 

The mind by its very nature can only rea- 
son from data, and hence, if new conclu- 
sions are to be arrived at, old impressions 
(things believed to be facts), to some extent, 
must be removed before any progress can be 
made. And it is from this view that the 
relevancy of all that is said in the intro- 
ductory part of the work to the main ques- 
tion will appear. 

The writer believes that his brief argu- 



6 PREFACE 

ment establishes immovably the doctrine of 
the eternity of the substance of things as 
opposed to the " Creation " theory, and that 
the general acceptance of this truth must 
result in great good to humanity, for the 
simple reason that, in the fullest sense of 
the word, it is a fundamental one, under- 
lying as it does the whole structure of hu- 
man knowledge — the science of duty as well 
as all other branches of learning. 

But whether or not the argument on this 
main question is conclusive, no person can, 
it is believed, read the little volume without 
deriving some benefit. Advanced thinkers 
may possibly see more clearly the strength 
of their positions. Honest doubters of old 
doctrines will be encouraged to depend on 
the natural outgivings of their intellects as 
having much of real truth. Believers in the 
common church dogmas, if not so shaken in 
their views as to make them more indepen- 
dent thinkers themselves, will, at least, be 
made more tolerant of the views of those 
who can not see things as they do. Skepti- 
cism will be less odious to them than before, 
and free thought be looked upon as less 



PREFACE 7 

dangerous than they were wont to consider 
it. So that if no definite change of opinion 
on any particular subject result to readers 
there will still remain to some of them at 
least the profit of the new thoughts that 
will be provoked. And it is new thoughts 
that move the world — all progress depends 
upon them. 

It may not be amiss to state here that the 
doctrine of the eternity of the substance of 
the physical universe, as herein established, 
is not necessarily atheistic. The argument 
will, in the minds of all readers who are 
thoughtful and who have a fair knowledge 
of the principles of Natural Science, destroy 
the idea of a " Creator," but it at the same 
time demonstrates beyond question the ex- 
istence of a " Supreme Being." 

It leads the mind by logical and natural 
processes of reasoning from the ' ' temporal " 
to the "eternal" and thus brings the reader 
face to face with God — and all this without 
any "inspiration" other than that which 
is the common heritage of every honest 
thinker. 

That the Deity thus found is not a " per- 



8 PKEFACE 

sonal" one will not be objected to by the 
deepest religious natures, for the reason 
that the impersonal is necessarily greater 
than the personal, and the true God must 
be that, than which a greater can not be 
conceived. 

Chicago, August, 1892. 



CONTENTS 

I. Character op the Work— Somewhat 
Personal — The Faith of the Skeptic — 
No Unknowable— Being Needs no A- 
pology — Source op Knowledge — Need 
op Toleration— Other thoughts. . . 13 
II. Reason Leads to Truth — Consciousness 
not a Truth-determining Faculty— To 
Know is a Property op Man's Organ- 
ism — Nature Gives no Reasons for 
her Actions 50 

III. Definition of Truth — The Crowning 

Glory of Man — A. Duty to Reason— 
Common-place Facts 68 

IV. The Question to be Discussed— Need of 

Faith in Man— Faith in Facts is Easy 
— Monstrous Doctrines — Reason, 
alone. Deals with Cause and Effect 
— Instinct Knows Nothing About the 

Causes of Things 80 

V. No First Cause, a Demonstration. . . 95 
VI. Other and Shorter Mental Processes 

Leading to the same Conclusion. . . 102 
VII. Explanation op Terms 106 



10 CONTENTS 

VIII. The Formal Arguments Condensed. . . 109 

IX. The Term "Beginning" is Generally 
Used only as a Matter op Convenience 
— Moses does not Positively Affirm a 
Beginning— Some Queries 118 

X. Eternity of Matter, Force and Phe- 
nomena — New Heavens and new 
Earths — Thought Produced by Mat- 
• ter in Motion and the Activities of 
Nature afford the only Scope for its 
Rational Exercise 116 

XI. The Eternity of Succession in Harmony 
with all other Knowledge— Reach of 
Theistic Arguments — Further of the 
Source and Character of Human 
Knowledge 127 

XII. Form and Order also Eternal— An Ade- 
quate Cause in Nature for all that 
Occurs — The great Age of the Earth. 133 

XIII. The Fundamental Fallacy Underlying 

the Belief in a Creation or first 
cause Pointed Out 138 

XIV. Belief in a Cause for the Totality of 

things Irrational and Unnecessary. 147 

XV. The Doctrine of eternal Succession is 

Mentally Restful and Satisfying. > 150 



CONTENTS 11 

XVI. A Se^f-existent Universe the Fact op 
all Facts, and the Veritable and 
only real deity 152 

XVII. The Theological Pyra mid — A Monument 
op Superstition, and how it has been 
Built on the Fundamental Fallacy 
Pointed out in this Work 155 

XVIII. Conclusion 164 



"Of absolute rest nature gives us no evidence; all mat- 
ter, as far as we can ascertain, is ever in movement, not 
merely in masses as with the planetary spheres, but also 
molecularly, or throughout its most intimate structure; 
thus every alteration of temperature produces a molecular 
change throughout the whole substance heated or cooled ; 
slow chemical or electrical actions, actions of light or in- 
visible radiant forces, are always at play, so that as a fact 
we can not predicate of any portion of matter that it is 
absolutely at rest." 



NO "BEGINNING" 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY. 



CHAPTER I 

CHARACTER OF THE "WORK — SOMEWHAT PERSONAL — THE 
FAITH OF THE SKEPTIC— NO UNKNOWABLE — BEING 
NEEDS NO APOLOGY — SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE — NEED 
OF TOLERATION— OTHER THOUGHTS 

11 Within the brain's most secret cells, 
A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells, 
Ofsov'reiorn power, whom, one and all, 
With common voice, we ' reason ' call.'' 

This is not an " orthodox" book. It 
inferentially and intentionally antagonizes 
the fundamental doctrines of the so-called 
orthodox religions. Do not read it, dear 
brother man, if yon are a believer in the 
popular creeds of the day, unless you are 



14 NO BEGINNING 

willing to investigate anew the foundations 
of your faith. The work is written for the 
truth it may contain and is published with 
the hope that it may be instrumental in aid- 
ing mankind, somewhat, in finding funda- 
mental facts on which to base and maintain 
its ethics and its governments. It deals 
only with basal truths, and is written in the 
interest of future man. If the reasoning 
of the work, and the conclusions arrived at, 
are unsound, it can do no permanent harm, 
and may, even in such case, lead to truth, 
by provoking new thoughts in others. 
Prof. John Tyndall says : ' ' Right or wrong, 
a thoughtfully uttered theory has a dyna- 
mic power which operates against intellect- 
ual stagnation ; and even by provoking 
opposition is eventually of service to the 
cause of truth." 

The writer is a lover of truth. He despises 
hypocrisy and deception ; and, hence, does 
not desire to get what he has to say before 
his readers through false pretenses. The 
Christian Bible, though the work of man 
as all other bibles and books are, contains 
much of truth. It says in substance, some- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 15 

where, that we should not do evil that good 
may come. This is heartily indorsed ; and 
hence any good that may come from this 
book will not be at the expense of the evil 
of dissimulation. 

The writer has thought considerably on 
religious and ethical questions, and for the 
sole purpose of finding the real facts under- 
lying the systems engaging his attention. 

For years he has refrained from giving 
publicity to some of his most honest convic- 
tions through a fear (born as he believes of 
his early education) that harm to society 
might come from the too general enlighten- 
ment of the masses as to the actual truth 
lying at the foundation of the popular relig- 
ious systems. " Santa- Claus," he reasoned, 
is a source of pleasure, and possibly of 
profit, to children ; and why is not an 
immaculate Savior, a veritable God-man, 
a benefit, if not a necessity, for men and 
women ? 

He has, however, come to the conclusion 
that the time has arrived when truth may 
safely show her face; that, with the en- 
lightenment of the age as to the nature of 



16 NO BEGINNING 

things, there no longer exists a necessity 
for a "Thus saith the Lord" system of 
morals. 

" New occasions teach new duties ; 
Time makes ancient good uncouth. 
They must upward still and onward, 

Who would keep abreast of truth. 
Lo! before us gleam her camp fires ; 

We, ourselves, must pilgrims be, 
Launch our Mayflower, and sail boldly 

Through the winter's icy sea; 
Nor attempt the future's portal 

With the past's blood-rusted key." 

There is but little doubt that if Moses 
were now alive he would not seriously claim 
that his ten commandments were engraved 
by the " finger of God,'' but would admit 
that they were the result of experience, and 
written as all other laws were at that time. 

It is easy to see the wisdom if not the 
necessity, in the absence of well organized 
governments, and in the then ignorant con- 
dition of the body of the people, of an ap- 
peal to the superstition of the semi-barbarous 
masses that the ancient lawgiver had to 
govern. 

Then, such a thing as rational ethics was 
not known unless it was among the ruling 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 17 

classes. No appeal could be made to the 
people through their knowledge of the 
nature of things, because they did not pos- 
sess such knowledge. 1 Instead, therefore, 



1 "Moses" is supposed tohave lived something over three 
thousand years ago and the child-like ignorance of man- 
kind at that time as to the causes of natural phenomena 
may be inferred from such facts as the following : 

The earth was then supposed to be a flat body of un- 
known extent. It was then, and until a few hundred 
years ago, believed to be the center of the universe; in fact 
was thought of as being substantially the universe. 
The millions of sun-stars that are each the center of a sys- 
tem of worlds were thought to have been created and 
placed in space for no other purpose than what little light 
they gave to the nightly wanderer on this earth. 

Any unusual natural occurrence was believed to be a 
special manifestation of the anger of the Gods. A rain- 
bow was a promise of good, and an eclipse was fin omen of 
some great tribulation. Animals were slaughtered and 
burned that the smell might reach to heaven and mollify 
Jehovah's wrath. The art of printing and the manufac- 
ture of paper, the use of steam and electricity as powers, 
the discovery of the circulation of the blood, the use of 
machinery of almost all kinds, the use of medicines for 
diseases, a knowledge of the atmosphere in which we live, 
the discovery of the shape, size and motion of the earth, 
and of the great American continent comprising nearly all 
the land within the Western Hemisphere — and, in short, 
the discovery of nearly every fact on which the learning of 
the world is to-day based, were all events occurring thou- 
sands of years after the time when " Moses " is supposed to 



18 NO BEGINNING 

of attempting the impossible task of show- 
ing the people the why and the wherefore of 
right doing, Nature's powers were personi- 
fied, and "God," who it was believed lived 
on the top of Mount Sinai, was said to have 
arbitrarily issued His mandates through 
Moses to the people. 



have issued his "Thus saith the Lord " rules to the Hebrew 
people, That he did very well as a lawgiver, considering 
the times in which he lived, is not disputed ; but that he was 
inspired, in any manner different from what honest law- 
makers of all times are inspired, is an assumption without 
the semblance of proof, and one that has been a great hin- 
drance to progress ; for it is unquestionably true that just 
in proportion as the world is made to believe at any time 
that a certain code of morals, or of civil conduct, has been 
directly given by God to man (it being in such case con- 
sidered perfect) just in that proportion will man cease all 
effort to make better laws or to establish forms of govern- 
ment more conducive to his happiness and advancement. 

It is clear from a moment's thought on the subject, that 
the " ten commandments " contain only such fundamental 
rules of conduct as would suggest themselves to man at a 
very early age of the race. 

As to the display of any superhuman wisdom in the so- 
called Mosaic account of creation in the order in which 
things were said to have been produced, so often spoken of 
by theologians, all there is to this, is. that the writer was 
not stupid enough to "create" the herbivorous animal be- 
fore the plants on which it feeds, or the fishes before the 
sea in which they swim. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY ±\) 

There may be those to-day, and doubtless 
are, who believe literally this simple story, 
and who would be less tractable as subjects 
and less worthy as citizens were it not for 
some such belief ; yet, it is happily true that 
man is so constituted and environed that, as 
a rule, such restraining influences cannot be 
separated from him except in proportion as 
he ceases to be superstitious ; and this con- 
dition can only come from a quite general 
knowledge among the people of the fact 
that Nature has laws of her own and that 
those laws are invariable. Superstition has 
been, at the same time, a great benefit and a 
great curse to the world ; a necessity in the 
past ; to some extent, possibly, beneficial at 
the present time ; but its loss need not be 
feared; for the reason that it will only dis- 
appear, like milk-teeth in children, when 
crowded out by its better successor. 

It will hardly be denied that it is the 
growth of the knowledge of natural causes 
for natural phenomena, that is the source of 
the increasing lack of faith in old church 
dogmas. Ever since man developed suffi- 
ciently as a rational being to inquire after 



20 NO BEGINNING 

causes of things, some cause had to be 
assigned for what occurred ; and in exact pro- 
portion as he failed to account philosophi- 
cally for events in nature, he was inclined 
to attribute such events to the work of some 
unseen personality. And, conversely, in 
proportion as he has found that matter pos- 
sesses certain properties, and that natural 
forces are ever acting in accordance with 
their own innate laws, he has found con- 
stantly less need of the supernatural. 2 Two 
thousand years ago men, generally, believed 
in miracles. Some time ago it became a kind 
of proverb that " the age of miracles has 
passed." What were called special provi- 
dences were, however, almost universally 
believed in until within, comparatively, a 
few years. Now, many clergymen even 
hesitate to assert such a belief ; while sci- 
entists, almost universally, consider such 



2 Joseph Le Con re in one of his recent and very able 
works in defense of the fundamental doctrines of the Chris- 
tian religion, says: " The religions world seems, just now, 
to be in one of those states of chaotic opinion, in a transi- 
tion state, a stage of disintegration, a state of solution, 
caused principally by the mass of new elements introduced 
by science.'''' 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 21 

things as existing only in the imaginations 
of men. But this great change, it must be 
seen, is on account of the growing belief of 
the world in the reign of natural law. 3 

The belief, in laws specially promul- 
gated by Deity to man is giving way because 



3 Herbert W. Morris, an able defender of certain 
church doctrines, writes eloquently on the uniformity of 
Nature's operations as follows : " The grand elements of 
nature move and operate according to the same uniform 
laws, the world over. Whether we traverse the plains, 
climb the mountains, sail upon the seas, dive into caverns, 
or ascend into the clouds, we find these laws in undeviating 
operation. Not an element moves capriciously, not an 
atom floats at random. Gravitation exerts its power ac- 
cording to the same rule, gases combine in the same pro- 
portions, metals fuse and liquids boil at the same points of 
heat, light is reflected and refracted at the same angles, 
heat is radiated, and the air is condensed or rarefied after 
the same laws, and dew and rain and snow are produced 
under the same circumstances and according to the same 
processes — whether we stand on this, or that side of the 
globe. The electric, magnetic and vital forces are likewise 
invariable in their action. The Needle elects its position, 
the fiery fluid of the clouds recovers its equilibrium, and 
life puts forth its powers, in the same way, wherever we 
go. Atoms cohere to atoms, and unite to form the crystal, 
or coalesce to produce the green blade, or aggregate to 
build the lordly tree, or blend to put forth the painted and 
perfumed flower, or combine to yield the luscious fruit — 
under the impulses of the same mysterious laws, from the 
rising to the setting sun." 



22 NO BEGINNING 

of, and solely because of, the increasing 
knowledge of the essential nature of things. 
So, as has been said, we need not fear to 
part with the old doctrines of direct and 
supernatural revelations as to duty and of 
unseen personalities ; for these will only dis- 
appear as they are crowded aside by the on- 
marching G-enius of science, bearing in her 
hand the mandate, which includes all that 
is good in the teachings of Moses and Christ : 
Conform yourselves ever to the laws of na- 
ture ; for there is no peace nor forgiveness 
for transgressors of her eternal edicts. 

The writer has no personal ends to gain 
by disagreeing with the majority of his fel- 
low-men on these subjects. On the contrary, 
he has thought in spite of himself, and come 
to conclusions that he well knows are unpop- 
ular at the present time. Whatever opin- 
ion, therefore, may be formed of the con*- 
tents of this little volume, he trusts that he 
will be credited with sincerity in all that 
may be written. 

The writer is one of the people ; he loves 
freedom for himself and for mankind as he 
loves his, own being. He once, voluntarily, 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 23 

risked his life in war for union, freedom and 
equality among men. He is a law-abiding- 
citizen, believing that laws made and re- 
tained by the majority of the people should 
be obeyed, right or wrong. 

In his youth he was a " skeptic " ; in his 
early manhood an "unbeliever;" and for 
years past, one of the wonders of the world 
to him has been the fact that so many edu- 
cated and good people were believers in the 
"Apostles' Creed." 4 

For over thirty years he has been con- 
scious that if the doctrines assented to by 
the millions of ' ' orthodox '' people were 
really true, he was liable at any moment to 
pass into a place or state of endless misery ; 

4 For the information of any reader who is not famil- 
iar with it, this creed is here given: 

" I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven 
and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; 
which was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the 
Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, 
dead, and buried; he descended into hell, the third day he 
rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and 
sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty; 
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the 
communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resur- 
rection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. 1 ' 



24 NO BEGINNING 

and he has pursued his investigations seri- 
ously and solemnly in view of the great risk 
involved. 

He has often been asked, why not be on 
the "safe side" by accepting the church 
doctrines? But he could not do so. He 
could not assent to certain doctrines, and 
was an unbeliever in them, for the reason — 
paradoxical as the statement may appear to 
some persons — that he had too much faith 
— in something else. In other words, his 
faith made him an unbeliever. 

He was an unbeliever in the doctrine of 
endless punishment, because he had faith 
that if there was a personal God he would 
provide a better destiny for his own chil- 
dren, and that in any case a less terrible fate 
awaited man.' 1 5 



5 That people of sound minds, who have any love in 
their hearts, can be believers in this monstrous doctrine of 
an endless hell must always be a matter of great astonish- 
ment to humane and thoughtful persons. And the fact 
that such a doctrine has been retained so long as a part of 
the creeds of the dominant churches is, in itself, proof that 
religious beliefs are, as a rule, the result of authority and 
not of thought. The doctrine is wholly irreconcilable with 
other church teachings. It is so far out of harmony with 
the conception of God as a good and compassionate being, 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 25 

He could not believe that an all-wise being 
made man and pronounced the work good, 
and then "repented" of the act and drowned 
the world, because he had faith that su- 
preme wisdom could make no mistakes. 

He could not believe that Gfod created 
millions of men and women, knowing before- 
hand that any of them would be the objects 



that, if it were true, it won Id make of the personal creator 
that the church believes in an infinite and unrelenting: 
tyrant. To the extent that it is really accepted, its ten- 
dency is to lessen sympathy, promote selfishness, nourish 
bigotry, increase intolerance, stifle thought, check prog- 
ress, generate discord, estrange friends, create misery and 
to antagonize at once the brotherhood of man and the 
fatherhood of God. It is a doctrine so superlatively re- 
pulsive, absurd and awful as to make of all arguments 
against it the merest verbiage and any attempted defense 
the veriest blasphemy. Language can not depict half of 
its horrors nor comprehension grasp the smallest fraction 
of its infamy. It is infinite hate, infinite cruelty, infinite 
nonsense. Let every reader of these lines reflect on the 
meaning of the words "endless punishment" — not a year, 
not a thousand years, not a million years, not a million 
million years, but ages added to ages, eons multiplied by 
eons, and the sum and the product of all these, and yet 
the tortures of hell have but well begun! It is a disgrace to 
the present generation that any objection is made to strik- 
ing such an antiquated, needless and immoral dogma from 
the creeds of every church. It disparages man, libels God 
and is too great a compliment for even an imaginary devil. 



2b NO BEGINNING 

of his endless wrath ; because, on the same 
authority, he preferred to have faith that 
God was compassionate and good. 

He early doubted the existence of a per- 
sonal devil ; because he had faith that, if 
there ever was such a creature, God would 
have killed him at the first opportunity ; 
and would not have been long in making an 
opportunity. 

And he doubted that an angel in heaven 
ever got up a rebellion there and became a 
devil ; because there seemed to be just as 
good authority, and more reason, for believ- 
ing that God's will was supreme, at least in 
that one particular place. 

He did not believe that the world was 
created out of nothing ; that an adult man 
was ever made in a few minutes, or less 
time ; that Eve was manufactured out of a 
bit of bone and iiesh, cut from the side of a 
man; that Adam "hid" from an omnipres- 
ent personality behind a bush ; that God had 
a "chosen people" and at the same time 
was not a "respecter of persons." 

That God commanded Abraham to kill 
and burn up his son ; that Christ was im- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 27 

maculately conceived, or that he went, 
bodily, to some other world after his execu- 
tion ; that Christ worked miracles at all ; 
and especially, that the first proof given that 
he was Deity, in the form of a man, was the 
changing. of a quantity of water into an in- 
toxicating liquor to be drunk at a feast. 

In short, he did not believe any of a thou- 
sand miraculous, mysterious, improbable 
and cruel things mentioned in the "Bible"; 
because he believed them to be unreason- 
able, and preferred to have faith in things 
consistent with human experience and the 
well-known laws of nature. 

He thus, literally, became skeptical 
through faith; and he remained so from the 
fact that he had faith — that there is safety 
in being true to one's own honest convic- 
tions ; faith that a good God would not 
punish a person in some other world for try- 
ing to be right in this ; faith that no remorse 
can come to any rational being for earnestly 
seeking to know the truth. 

And this, dear reader, is the faith of 
the skeptic. Not a faith that is born of a 
vain and selfish desire to " wear a crown," 



28 NO BEGINNING 

or of the fear of punishment ; not a faith 
that is the result of the stuffing of the mind 
when young with mysterious and unreason- 
able things, but the faith that comes from 
deliberation, that fears nothing but being- 
wrong, and asks no special reward for being 
right. 

Skepticism, therefore, let it be remem- 
bered, odious as the clergy have tried to 
make the word, simply means lack of faith 
in some propositions, some doctrines ; and 
must, of necessity, be based on faith in 
something else. 

It is impossible to seriously doubt with- 
out a reason. 

The writer is not a believer in the doc- 
trine that man was once perfect and is now 
totally depraved ; but, on the contrary, he 
believes that naturally there is much good in 
man — that in general men mean well. He 
knows that there is much evil in the world, 
and that the lives of certain individuals 
show great depravity. But he also knows 
that there is much good manifested in the 
lives of men, and that among the many some 
are pre-eminently good. Among men there 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 29 

are to be found the good, better, best ; and 
the bad, worse, worst — all grades ; and this 
will doubtless always be the case, however 
high mankind may rise or however low it 
may fall, and regardless of what may, at 
any time, or in any world, be its standard 
of excellence. 

He believes that good and evil, like heat 
and cold, are relative terms. He knows that 
many well-meaning men have, in a practical 
sense of the word, been very bad men ; and 
that many times the wicked do good things ; 
and further, that many things admittedly 
evil in the doer prove to be for the ultimate 
good of society. 

He has, therefore, learned to be very tol- 
erant of the views and acts of his fellow- 
man ; not pretending to know with any 
such degree of certitude what on the whole 
is best in any given case, as to justify any 
extreme condemnation of the acts or teach- 
ings of others. 

As evil exists, and good still abounds, as 
the intentions of men are generally good, 
however bad in fact their doings or beliefs 
may be, the writer is inclined to account for 



30 NO BEGINNING 

the false views that have always been plenti- 
ful, on the ground of incorrect reasoning on 
the subjects considered, rather than on the 
theory of the perverseness of the reasoners. 
He has, therefore, always felt that the great- 
est need of the world was more honest rea- 
soning together on the various questions 
dividing and estranging men. 

The writer is sensible of his own littleness, 
and amazed at the greatness of things with- 
out himself. He admits that he knows but 
little ; that any one man knows but little ; 
and does not deem it possible, even for the 
millions of his race in the aggregate, to 
ever solve all the problems of the universe. 
He believes, however, that nature's opera- 
tions are all knowable to the collective intel- 
ligence of man, or to beings of the nature of 
man intellectually considered. 6 So many 

6 If the birth of ideas in the brain is thought of as an 
operation in which the energy of the brain is converted 
into thought, then in such view of the case it must be ad- 
mitted that here is one performance of nature that is un- 
knowable; for the reason that there must be a point, so to 
say, between knowable nature on the one side and knowl- 
edge of nature on the other where there is neither distinct- 
ively the one nor the other of these things. Speaking of 
"mind in the terms of matter," mind is the cognizing 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 31 

laws of Nature are now known, so much 
more in regard to her hitherto secret ways 



subject, and matter and its movements are the cognized or 
cognizable objects, and it is clear that in such view (which 
makes of mind, so-called, a kind of machine for converting 
natural phenomena into knowledge) the " mind " can not 
be at the same time both the cognizing subject and the 
cognized object — the machine and the material used by the 
machine. 

But the idea of the writer on this question is, that 
thought is not transformed energy, and hence the produc- 
tion of ideas by the organism is not an " operation " in the 
sense in which this word is used in connection with exter- 
nal phenomena, but that it is simply a property of the 
organism called man, when moved upon by forces, both ex- 
ternal and internal, to think, to cognize, to have ideas, to 
know. And thus viewed the fact that man thinks no' more 
demands explanation than does the fact that matter attracts 
matter, or that in various conditions and combinations it 
behaves in certain ways. Scientists do not pretend to enter 
upon any explanation of the existence of the properties of 
matter, but are content with the simple discovery of such 
properties. 

It is true that there are laws of attraction and laws in 
accordance with which all matter and forces act, and laws 
of thought, but the power of "mind." so-called, to per- 
ceive an object, or to draw inferences as in abstract reason- 
ing, is inexplainable, other than to know that the power 
exists. The fact itself is the only solution of the fact. 
And from this view of the subject it is plain that man's 
inability to explain the existence of the power of mental per- 
ception in himself does not form an exception to the general 
statement, that all of nature's operations are knowable. 



62 NO BEGINNING 

of doing things is likely to be discovered, 
that it seems absurd to attempt to set a limit 
to what it is possible to know. If we do so, 
and say that at a certain line knowable 
things end and all beyond is unknowable, it 
is like attempting to fix in the imagination 
a limit to space. We may say, and try to 
make ourselves believe, that space ends at 
some indefinite line far away ; but as we 
think, and try to fix such a line it is found 
impossible, from the fact that the mind at 
once goes beyond the attempted limit. The 
line is, so to say, no sooner fixed than the 
Mind looks beyond and defiantly asks itself : 
"What is there?" and, answering at once, 
says : ' ' Space is there — space is not, and 
cannot be limited.'' And so it would seem 
to be with knowable things. As no bound- 
ary wall can mentally be erected for space, 
so as to what truths in nature it is possible 
for man to discover, no limit can be set for 
mind by mind. 

The mind of reasoning intelligences may 
move, somewhat like a planetary body, in a 
circle ; but unlike the material body, it is 
constantly changing the plane of its orbit 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 33 

and its length of flight ; and is thus ever 
brought into new realms of thought and to 
see new truths. 

The writer, inerefore, with greater defer- 
ence but with equal confidence of being 
right, as promptly objects to an unknowa- 
ble line being fixed by a Spencer as by a 
Spurgeon ; by a Huxley or a Darwin, as by 
the average churchman who is ever ready to 
say, when confronted by a difficult problem: 
" Such things it was not given us to know." 

All realities are knowable and yet all may 
never be known, may be said precisely in 
the same sense tha* it may be said that all 
space is measurable, yet only a small part of 
its infinite amplitude will ever be measured 
by man. 

Place a man in any part of infinite space, 
and he will measure a portion of it. He 
will measure the world on which he may be 
placed, as a surveyor measures a farm, and 
then by means of the higher mathematics 
he will compute the size and distance of 
other worlds millions of miles away ; and 
he is as much and as fully a knowing, as he 
is a measuring creature. No mile of space 



34 NO BEGINNING 

exists that he can not measure if only he is 
placed within reach, and no fact of all the 
infinitude of facts of eternity transcends his 
power of knowing, except only as he is limi- 
ted in time and space. 

Man can not comprehend limitless space, 
but he is cognizant of it— he knows that it is. 
He can not comprehend infinity, but mathe- 
matics brings it to light as surely as it does 
the existence of a thousand pebbles. He 
can not comprehend endless succession, but 
he can find it to be a fact. He can not know 
all things, but he can know some things and 
know that he knows them, and know also 
that it is possible for him to know other and 
still other things, being limited only by op- 
portunity. And it is impossible for him to 
set a limit to his own power to know by any 
independent volition of his own, as it is im- 
possible for him to know any one thing by 
reason of any such volitionary power. He 
knows what is reflected by his mental fac- 
ulties and he can not know anything else ; 
and hence he can not know that a reality 
not known is unknowable. 

It is common with theological writers of 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 35 

an advanced type to speak of the "how" 
and the "why" of natural things. They 
say that science has the "how" to deal 
with, and religion the "why" 7 — that sci- 
ence has for its object the explanation of the 
immediate causes of phenomena but that it 
is left, largely at least, to supernatural reve- 
lations to account for the purpose of things. 
They insist, by inference, that nothing ex- 
ists except by reason of a pre-existing pur- 
pose of something else. 

Now, it seems much more rational to 
admit the existence of things, absolutely, 
unqualifiedly. 

Existence itself is before purpose, and 
requires no apology for its being. Hence 
there can not have been purposes before a 
being (a something). 

7 It is said in ' ' The Unseen Universe ' ' (a very able work 
supposed to have been written by two eminent scientific 
gentlemen of England): " A division as old as Aristotle 
separates speculators into two great classes — those who 
study the How of the Universe, and those who study the 
Why. All men of science are embraced in the former of 
these, all men of religion in the latter. The former regard 
the Universe as a huge machine, and their object is to study 
the laws which regulate its working; the latter again 
speculate about the object of the machine, and what sort 
of work it is intended to produce." 



36 NO BEGINNING 

Things are, and with the exception of 
some of the works of man and other finite 
intelligences, if such exist, there is no rea- 
son why for their being. 

The writer's position is, therefore, that 
the "how," the modus operandi of things 
being knowable without limitation, and 
there being no "why" for natural things 
(with the above exception), there is no fact 
in nature but what the intellect of man is 
competent (the opportunity being given) 
to know. 

If it is claimed that simple existence or 
being is a fact and an unknowable fact, it is 
perhaps a sufficient reply to say that sub- 
stance or essence however conceived of is 
known by its properties — its characteristics, 
and that simple being in the sense of sub- 
stance without character is probably not a 
fact. This seems so, for how better can we 
arrive at the idea of complete non-entity 
than by eliminating from matter all its known 
properties ? It is most evident that to take 
from matter the one quality of extension is 
to destroy it ; and to take from force the 
idea of influence exerted is to annihilate 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 37 

force; so that it must be illogical to speak of 
a supposed thing that is reduced to non- 
entity in the very effort to conceive of it, as 
an actuality - 

The mind is adapted to know realities, 
and realities have properties making them 
objects of knowledge — making them know- 
able; and hence a thing supposed to be a 
reality, but found to have no knowable 
nature, is necessarily discarded by the mind 
(if the mind is not under duress) as a false 
conception and as not existing at all as a 
verity. 

The "unknowable" is possibly only an- 
other name for the unreal. 8 



8 If the position above taken — that there does not exist 
any such thing as simple being, that is, being without 
properties — is correct, then, of course, it can not be said 
that such supposed simple being is an unknowable reality. 
Such c form, so to express it, of being can not be an un- 
knowable thing, because it is not a thing at all. 

It may be said, however, that even admitting for the 
sake of the argument that such a reality as simple being 
does exist, yet it can not be classed as unknowable. If 
anything exists and is known to exist, it is not wholly un- 
knowable — its existence is known. And in the case of so- 
called simple being, it is clear that all there is to know of 
it is the one fact of its existence; for the very term simple, 
or pure being, limits the character of such being to bare 



38 NO BEGINNING 

existence; so that, generally the proposition that affirms 
the existence of an unknowable something, is to some ex- 
tent self-contradictory; and if the supposed unknowable 
reality is simple existence, then the proposition becomes a 
complete self-contradiction and an absurdity on its face. 
Simple being, if such exists, is fully known by being 
known to exist. 

But perhaps the better way to dispose of the question is 
to maintain that simple being is not being at all, but an 
empty and abstract conception — a form of thought with 
all the substantial elements eliminated. 

It is true that in our effort to understand nature, our 
powers of conception finally seem to be confronted with an 
"unknowable"; but this is so because we are inclined to 
try to get away from nature for its ultimate solution, and 
thus pass unconsciously from the concrete reality to an 
empty conception, and forget for the time that the purely 
abstract, as an abstract, is fully known by being known to 
be. Similarly as the image of a visible body remains for 
an instant on the retina of the eye after the body is with- 
drawn from actual view, a kind of indistinct consciousness 
of something seems to linger with us after the real ele- 
ments of the object of thought have all been eliminated; 
but actual consciousness of the existence of an object being 
dependent on the phenomenal properties of the object, real 
consciousness of such object must cease with the complete 
elimination from the object of its consciousness-awakening 
properties. 

In so far as we think of this indistinct consciousness as 
standing for an actuality, such actuality seems to have 
unknowable qualities; but this is not so in reality, for its 
existence — granting for the argument's sake that such 
actuality exists — is its only remaining attribute, and this 
being known, all is known. And in this view, the seem- 
ingly unknowable is known at the very instant that it is 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 39 

apprehended as being; and hence the actually unknowable 
does not exist at all. 

An abstract thing is not an entity > because all the real 
elements have been thrown out and nothing but a shadow 
remains. 

Take as an illustration any of such abstracts as " white- 
ness," "roundness," etc. : Nothing farther can be known 
of them than their existence — as long as they are regarded 
as abstracts; but this is because there is nothing to know 
of them as abstracts but their existence. "Whiteness " 
is not a thing, but a conception of similarity between 
things. As soon as the attempt is made to apply the term 
" whiteness " to a particular thing, it ceases to be white- 
ness, and the thing becomes a white body or substance, 
and all there is of " whiteness " is merged in the concrete 
substance and lost. The same may be said of "round- 
ness " : this is not an entity, but a form only ; and a form 
distinct from a formed thing is complete emptiness. 
Forms are not even bounded by substance, but by lines. 
A form, therefore, instead of being an entity or power, is 
nothingness enclosed in nothingness. In short, the very 
term i6 abstract " means lacking substance. 

And thus it is that so-called pure being, or something 
supposed to exist anterior to, or outside of all concrete 
being, is nothing but pure emptiness — the real substance 
all having been excluded by the very name we gave to the 
supposed unknowable essence. 

It is a fact that being underlies all thought; that without 
existence of some kind there would be no thought; but it is 
concrete being and not an unthinkable, unconditioned 
something that lies at the foundation of thought opera- 
tions. Concrete being operating on the knowing organism 
produces knowledge of the existence of such being, and this 
knowledge lies at the foundation of a\\ further knowledge — 
is what may be called a first truth. But first truths are the 



40 NO BEGINNING 

result of thought as surely as are all subsequent truths. The 
mental activity which forces us to say that something- is, is 
less in quantity but no less real in quality than those 
thought operations involved in solving a problem in 
geometry. 

Knowledge does not begin with innate ideas in the 
4 ' mind" considered as an entity, but with perception — 
that is, by or through the effect produced on the organism 
by actual concrete substance; and it ends at the end of 
phenomena— at the end of real being. In other words, it 
does not end at all until all realities are known. Substance 
produces thought? thought, by what for the want of a bet- 
ter name may be called a kind of reaction, deals with sub- 
stance. At the end of concrete reality, in so far as such an 
end may be supposed to be conceived, thought, of course, 
ceases— not, however, because there is something unknow- 
able beyond, but for the reason that there is neither " ob- 
jective " material nor " subjective " power left. 

It may seem that the changeable must rest on an un- 
changeable — that the state of change presupposes a state 
of unchangeableness as a kind of antithesis of thought; but 
this seeming necessity is fully done away with when the 
mind grasps the idea of perpetual change. It is not an 
unchangeable, but the changeable itself that changes. 
There can be no connection between an unchangeable and a 
changeable, for any supposed connection whatever — such 
as seeks to make of the former the cause of the latter — 
destroys the unchangeable character of the so-called un- 
changeable and makes of it also a changeable essence. In 
other words, an " absolute " cannot be an absolute and at 
the same time be the cause of the " related." 

Herbert Spencer himself, in tryinsr to prove the existence 
of an absolute and " unknowable " reality, " behind appear- 
ances," as he expresses it, makes an admission which de- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 41 

Knowledge is of, or concerning Nature's 
methods, and Nature's methods are all 
knowable. 

To go further than this and to say that 
back of and anterior to nature there existed 
an infinitude of purposes in the mind of an 
infinite personal intelligence, is without rea- 
son and without results. It is simply an 
attempted explanation for what needs no 
explanation, in that it resolves itself into 
seeking a reason for existence — an excuse 
for being, when being must necessarily be 



stroys his non-relative (another name for the unchangeable 
or absolute). He says, " Ifc follows that the relative is, 
itself, inconceivable, except as related to a real non-rela- 
tive ," seeming to overlook the fact that it the ' l relative " 
is related to a "non-relative," then must the non-relative 
be related to the relative, and hence is not a non-relative 
at all. If B is related to A, A is just as certainly re- 
lated to B And thus it is seen that unconditioned or ab- 
solute being- can not underlie, in any causal sense, condi- 
tioned, active existence, for absolute being ceases at once 
to be such, as soon as it is thought of as causing other 
being; and is, therefore, not a reality constituting an excep- 
tion to the proposition which affirms that all realities are 
knowable. 

The real actuality is in and identical with the moving, 
phenomenal existence, and not " behind it. 



42 NO BEGINNING 

(and is, even in this attempt to account for 
being) accepted as a first truth. 9 

Existence (in some sense of the word) can 
not, it is clear, be thought of as contingent. 
It necessarily is, and needs no reason for be- 
ing. To seek to get back of it, for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining a "why" for it, is to 
doubt its necessity and to make of all exist- 
ence something that need not have been. 

As to the forms of matter or the modes of 
force, or however the idea of character in 
necessary being may be ex£>ressed, it seems 
equally clear that character, or quality, is 
inseparable from being and no more needs 
explanation than does existence itself. 

No thing, whether it be named matter, 
force, or simply essence, without properties 
can be determined by the intellectual powers 
of man to exist, for the reason that all our 
knowledge of the existence of any thing 
comes from the character of such thing. 
It is only through its qualities that a thing 
is recognized by the mind at all. 

A characterless thing is no thing. 

9 Emerson says: "Being is the vast affirmative, ex- 
cluding negation, self-balanced, and swallowing up all rela- 
tions, parts and times within itself." 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 43 

This is not only a necessary deduction, it 
seems, from the fundamental laws of 
thought, but the truth of the statement is 
attested by the common-sense of mankind 
of all ages, as illustrated by the fact that 
the "Gods" of all people have been given 
certain attributes. They are u spiritual" or 
64 supernatural" beings, "without body, 
parts or passions, 9 ' perhaps. They have all 
been different in some respects from any 
natural thing known to exist „ They are so 
strangely different from all things else that 
they can not be seen or recognized by any of 
the physical senses or known by the know- 
ing faculty of man. They have, each one, 
been different from all the others in many 
particulars, and yet there is one, and possi- 
bly only one point in which they are all 
alike, and that is that each Deity has had 
attributes. 

And this fact is because there can not 
exist in the human mind a conception of 
any thing, any power or essence, however 
named, without character 

It is evident that quality can not exist 
without substance, and it seems just as cer- 



44 NO BEGINNING 

tain that substance can not exist without 
quality. The very conception of one pre- 
supposes the other; or rather the one is a 
fundamental element of the conception of 
the other. And this being so it follows that 
not only being but being having quality, 
character, substance, tendency, force, activ- 
ity — being similar to the being now found to 
be, is and has always been, as a necessity; 
and that the character and properties of 
matter are as self -existent and indestructible 
as is matter itself, or as is any other being of 
which it is possible to conceive. 

Being is, being is something, is some way — 
has characteristics, attributes, properties ; 
but can not be the result of an anterior 
purpose because purpose is itself a char- 
acteristic of something. Modes of nature 
therefore no more need or demand a prior 
purpose than " God," in the popular sense 
of the term, requires a creator or a reason 
for his attributes. 

Nature's movements, Nature's acts are her 
attributes, and there can be no " why" con- 
cerning them. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 45 

The ways of the infinite oneness neither 
need nor admit of justification. 

The writer, therefore, enters on the discus- 
sion of the questions to be considered nor 
only with the belief that no really unsolv- 
able problems ever have been or ever will be 
presented to man, but also with the firm 
conviction that it is only through the right 
use of reason that truth can be found and 
appropriated to the wants of the race. 
That he discards wholly the doctrine of 
direct revelation to the mind of man, by 
one or more higher personal intelligences, 
and believes alone in the revelation of 
Nature's works, it is hardly necessary to 
state. 

He believes that observation by means of 
the physical senses, memory, and mental 
activity constitute in man the only sources 
of knowledge: as to facts derived from 
history, tradition and more directly from 
others, as also inherited adaptability to re- 
ceive knowledge, all of these he includes 
within what might be called the memory of 
the race — the memory of the great family 
of man considered as one organism. 



46 NO BEGINNING 

The writer also believes that there is but 
one kind of intelligence — one kind of right 
reason in the universe. Mental power is 
possessed in different degrees by different 
men, and possibly by other classes of ra- 
tional beings ; but the difference is, in his 
opinion, only in degree and not in kind. 
Scientists, now, generally, believe that mat- 
ter everywhere is composed of the same 
elementary substances. Light, electricity 
and heat are doubtless the same substances 
or forces everywhere ; and it seems rational 
to conclude that wherever in the universe 
intelligence is found, it is the same in kind, 
although, like heat, differing greatly in de- 
gree. 

The writer is a believer in the doctrine of 
evolution — the doctrine that things grow, so 
to say. He does not believe than any tree, 
matured and ready to bear fruit, or any 
adult man, ever sprang instantaneously into 
existence, or was formed otherwise than by 
years of growth. 

Doctrines, religious beliefs, systems of 
ethics, and governments are also things of 
growth. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 47 

The writer believes in rational ethics, and 
in governments "of [coming out of or from, 
created by] the people, for the [whole] peo- 
ple, and by [all of] the people." 

Some criterion of right private action, as 
also laws controlling individuals in their 
treatment of each other, are necessities. 

But, as the individuals to be governed are 
the creators of all right government, and as 
all advancement by society is dependent on 
the action of the individuals composing it, the 
largest possible freedom should be reserved 
to such individuals— to the end, that there 
be no interference with the advancement of 
the people collectively. 

The only infallible criterion of right ac- 
tion, and the only true foundation of. human 
legislation, is natural law. 

To discover what that underlying law of 
nature is, should be the great aim of every 
legislator and ethical teacher. 

The writer would not, as should be inferred 
from what has been said, leave questions as 
to what is or what is not in conformity with 
natural law, to individual judges or courts ; 
but would crystallize into legislation the ag- 



43 NO BEGINNING 

gregate wisdom of the body of the people, 
and recognize and enforce this, as the gov- 
erning law, until changed by the people, 
through peaceful and established methods. 

It is right for individual men to differ in 
opinion. Such difference is natural, una- 
voidable, and necessary. Friction between 
mind and mind, occasioned by the expres- 
sion of conflicting thoughts, brightens and 
polishes such minds as certainly as friction 
polishes pieces of metal when rubbed to- 
gether. Humanity at large owes its past 
progress in knowledge wholly to such fric- 
tion ; and if better things are to be attained 
in the future they must come through the 
same process. 

Without mental activity, without the 
mixing and compounding of ideas, no indi- 
vidual could gain any great knowledge — 
could not, certainly, discover any general 
truth, law or rule of action ; and it is 
equally certain, that without the free inter- 
change of thoughts between individuals the 
greatest possible progress can not be made 
by collective man. 

And it should always be borne in mind, 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 49 

that it is only in the aggregate that man is 
great or does great things. 

The greatest individual, alone, is narrowly 
limited, both in power and time for action. 
He is "of few days and full of trouble. " 
He thinks a few thoughts, adds a trifle to 
the knowledge of his race, and passes away. 
Mankind, however, as a whole, is an organ- 
ism that encircles the world ; is million-eyed, 
looking out into the universe in all directions 
at the same time ; lives for ages — possibly 
for a number of years so great as to be in- 
comprehensible by a single mind. He builds 
cities ; establishes governments ; creates 
systems of philosophy ; weighs the earth 
and the other planets as in a balance ; meas- 
ures the distances of the more remote heav- 
enly bodies, and calculates their positions in 
space a thousand years ahead — utilizes 
Nature's forces ; discovers her laws ; and is 
fast finding out the hitherto "secret ways 
of God." 



CHAPTER II 



SEASON LEADS TO TRUTH— CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A TRUTH 
DETERMINING FACULTY — TO KNOW IS A PROPERTY OP 
MAN'S ORGANISM— NATURE GIVES NO REASONS FOR HER 
ACTIONS 

With the foregoing preliminary and some- 
what personal remarks, the writer proceeds 
to a kind of second preface, designing, by 
all that is said in advance of the more 
formal discussion, to accomplish at least 
three things : 

First: to indicate, somewhat, the route 
he has traveled mentally in reaching his 
general conclusion, and to hint at certain 
fundamental facts that possibly may, in the 
future, be dwelt upon by the reader to his 
profit as a seeker after truth, and to the 
advantage of the writer in the arguments to 
follow. 

Second: to call into action the mental 
powers of the reader so that he may start in 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 51 

the discussion wide awake and fully con- 
scious that it is his boldest, purest, and 
most honest reason, and this alone, that is 
to be addressed. 

Third : to procure that thoughtful atten- 
tion to the final and main arguments that 
might not be given if they were more 
abruptly thrust before the reader. 

The principal question to be considered, 
is that relating to the origin of the totality 
of things. This has appeared to most men 
in the past to be too great a problem to be 
solved by human reason ; and there will 
doubtless be some readers of this book who 
will look upon any attempt to deal with the 
question, from the standpoint of reason 
alone, as unpardonable presumption. 

The writer's apology to such persons is, in 
part, that his mind has not followed a cer- 
tain channel of thought wholly from choice. 
Whatever may be said on the question of 
man's responsibility for his thoughts, it is 
most evident to any reflecting mind that no 
one can think exactly what he chooses to 
think. That a person to a very great extent 
thinks what his environment and physical 



52 NO BEGINNING 

constitution compel him to think, must be 
admitted by all who think at all. 

An irresistible proof of the fact that cir- 
cumstances not of one's own creation help 
to shape his thoughts, is furnished in the 
experience of every reader of this book, 
and at the particular instant of reading this 
paragraph. You, reader, did not learn of 
your own volition or choice that there was 
such a book in existence. Circumstances, 
over which you had no control, placed these 
words before you, and you have new 
thoughts as the result. 

The writer would not, however, be under- 
stood as intimating that he has made any 
particular effort to coerce his mind in its 
search for truth. He could not do this and 
be a believer in the desirability of mental 
freedom. 

As well might the mariner expect to go 
safely into port when interfering with and 
restraining the free action of his compass, 
as for a man to hope to find truth when try- 
ing to make his views of things conform 
either to his own pre-judgments or to the 
opinions of others. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 53 

To say to one's self, "I have thought in 
this manner and must not change my views," 
or, " This doctrine is popular and I must be 
faithful to it," is mental slavery. To refuse 
to think for fear of finding new truths, is 
mental cowardice. And to seek to influence 
the intellectual views of others or of one's 
self otherwise than by an honest and kindly 
appeal to reason, is mental tyranny. 

Reason cannot both guide and be guided. 
It likes to be trusted, and, like the sensitive 
pilot, goes before those only who desire its 
services. 

It is like a wise and humane king ; it 
dispenses blessings in proportion as it is 
given the right to rule ; and if blind feeling 
or unenlightened " consciousness " usurps 
its place, reason is not to blame if error is 
the result. 

Reason is man's best friend. It is the 
lantern given him by nature to light his way 
through the world. Let not mistakes be 
charged to its account until its light is freely 
followed ; and thus far in the history of the 
race it cannot be claimed that this has been 
the case. 



54 NO BEGINNING 

Some men have reasoned a little ; others 
have reasoned mnch on some subjects ; but 
what is needed is, that all men, or at least 
the majority, should reason on all subjects. 
And not until this is done can it fairly be 
claimed that the reason of collective man 
will fail to point unerringly in the direction 
of truth, and of the greatest possible good. 

With all its hindrances in the past, reason 
has led man far away from his primitive 
barbarity and up to a high plane of civiliza- 
tion. It has replaced the cave and the rude 
hut of his ancestors with beautiful cottages 
and stately mansions. It has given him a 
variety of healthful food, and provided him 
witli medicines for almost every ill. It has 
given him conscious knowledge of his own 
dignity and possibilities, and added in 
countless ways to his well-being. It has in- 
creased his years on the earth and multi- 
plied many times his joys It has provided 
him with wealth to supply his material 
wants, and set before him intellectual viands 
fit for gods It has enlarged his powers of 
mind ; educated his judgment ; allayed his 
fears ; broadened his sympathies ; increased 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 55 

his love for his fellows, and is fast bringing 
about an era of gentleness that will make 
every duty a pleasure and every labor a 
recreation. 

The writer is aware that it is claimed by 
some — and strange to say claimed as being 
reasonable — that some particular truths are 
not discernible by reason ; but are only 
known to be truths by consciousness, inde- 
pendent of any intellectual process. The 
correctness of this doctrine has already, in- 
ferentially at least, been questioned ; but it 
is here suggested, without the intention of 
being sarcastic, that if this is in reality a 
true doctrine, then is it also a fact that some 
truths are not in harmony with reason — are 
unreasonable ; and this cannot be. At least, 
it cannot reasonably be granted, but must 
be denied. 

Reason cannot admit that any truth is 
unreasonable. 

Other faculties or impulses of man's na- 
ture may suggest the existence of a truth, 
not before consciously known, but reason 
can not accept it until she has passed upon 
its genuineness. 



56 NO BEGINNING 

Reason, the proud mistress of our com- 
plex being, constantly asserts her sole qual- 
ification to determine what is and what is 
not true, and can not be expected to sur- 
render her rights to any or all of her subor- 
dinates. The senses may suggest, desire 
may urge, love and hope may importune, 
but reason alone returns all verdicts as to 
what is real and what is fanciful — what is 
true and what false. 

If formal argument is demanded on this 
question of the supremacy of reason it may 
be had somewhat as follows : 

If it be asserted that feeling or conscious- 
ness, distinct from ratiocination, is the true 
arbiter as to the truth or falsity of any given 
proposition, let the assertion itself be tested 
in its own crucible and notice the result. 
If the truth of any proposition, such, for 
instance, as asserts the existence of a per- 
sonal Deity — is best determined by feel- 
ing, as distinguished from reason, then is 
the following proposition true : Conscious- 
ness alone is the true arbiter as to the truth 
or falsity of some propositions. ' But is this 
true, tested by itself \ If our inmost self is 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 57 

consulted, if our consciousness is appealed 
to, it will be learned that it does not assert 
itself to be a truth-determining faculty on 
any subject — does not claim to be able to 
discriminate between actualities and things 
only seemingly so — does not claim to weigh 
evidence and pass on its sufficiency to estab- 
lish a case , but is only a kind of record of 
our mental tribunal, rather than the court 
itself. 

We are conscious that we think ; but we 
are equally conscious that we are only con- 
scious of this fact after we have thought ; 
that thought must exist before we are con- 
scious of it, and that, therefore, mental ac- 
tivity (reason) is the creator of conscious 
conclusions, and their superior. 

At first thought, there may seem to be ex- 
ceptions to this. Impromptu judgments 
are known in some cases to be more reliable 
than conclusions reached after a certain 
amount of conscious thought on the subject ; 
and such conclusions may appear to be 
original determinations of consciousness. 
But they are not. Such prompt responses 
af the mind to questions submitted are 



58 NO BEGINNING 

based on facts previously gained by reason, 
and recorded in the mind. 

The brain keeps a faithful record of all 
the impressions made on the mind, and 
often, unsolicited by conscious volitionary 
action of the individual, gives out judg- 
ments. Such judgments are instantaneous, 
and intuitive in a certain sense, but are 
none the less the product of mental activ- 
ity ; and are only reliable in proportion as 
the former impressions made on the mind 
were in accordance with facts. 

In the shaping of judgments, a falsehood 
believed is as potential as a fact believed ; 
and when a person believes a falsehood he is 
just as consciously certain that this untruth 
is a verity as he is consciously certain of 
anything. And this fact shows that con- 
sciousness is not, as has been before stated, 
a truth-determining faculty. 

It can not be said that we are conscious 
that anything is true not believed to be true. 
Consciousness, then, all depends on belief- 
consciousness is belief. 

But belief is not a test of truth. 

Some beliefs are true and some are false. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 59 

Therefore to feel conscious that any prop- 
osition is true is in itself no test of its truth. 

After the mind has perceived or recognized 
a truth, it becomes conscious of it ; is im- 
pressed by it. We feel what we know ; but 
do not know a thing so, simply because we 
feel that it may or ought to be. 

One man feels that one thing ought to be, 
and another feels that that thing of all oth- 
ers, perhaps, ought not to be; the feeling of 
each depending on his judgment as to what 
is best. 

It is true that the sphere of faith "tran- 
scends reason''; but only as the imagination 
transcends reality. 

We know that things exist because we 
are, and we know that we are, only because 
we have the power to discern truth — be- 
cause, through our senses, objects external 
to ourselves are perceived. In other words, 
the conscious self is not at all until things 
without are recognized as being. 

Consciousness — even of our own existence 
— is a creature of thought; 10 and mind being 

10. Rev. Dr H. W Thomas, among many great 
thinkers, puts consciousness before mental activity. He 



60 NO BEGINNING 

says: " There is a universal consciousness that we are, and 
then a consciousness of something else " But a more de- 
fensible statement, it seems, would be to say : We are 
made conscious of things not self, and then become 
conscious of self. It may be true that consciousness 
of self is simultaneous with consciousness of the non- 
ego, but still the former must ari?e from the latter rather 
than the reverse. Inasmuch as the whole interna) part 
of the mental machinery is set in motion by forces reach- 
ing it through the senses, it at least can not be said that 
consciousness of self precedes consciousness of things not 
self. If the whole mental machine is thought of as being 
" internal " — within the brain, or a particular part of this 
organ — then it might be difficult to deny that conscious- 
ness may be a kind of self-determining faculty. But this 
is clearly a wrong view. It is not the brain that thinks, 
strictly speaking; it is the whole man, The sensory nerves, 
reachiug to all parts of the body, are all a part of the 
thinking organism. A man sees a pitfall in front of him; 
the eye and the optic nerves are affected, and after this the 
man thinks — feels conscious that he is in danger, and 
changes his course. He thought; he was conscious that he 
thought; but the eye was as much concerned in producing 
the thought and the consciousness of the thought as was 
any part of the brain; and even more so, for had it not 
been for the eye, neither the nerves nor the " brain " 
would have been moved to action. 

The old metaphysicians thought of the " mind " as a 
kind of thinking machine distinct from the body ; and 
many more modern and less metaphysical thinkers con- 
ceive of the mind as being wholly within a particular part 
of the body ; but the latter is only a compromise position ; 
for it is the whole man that thinks, as surely as it is the 
whole mill that grinds the wheat and produces the flour. 
And this being true, it must follow that although con- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 61 

the creator of consciousness can not be sub- 
ordinate to it. 

As great bodies are composed of many 
particles so are great truths built upon or 
formed of minor facts. The discovery of 
one truth leads to others ; but mental activ- 
ity is back of the whole and back of every 
accretion. 

So it is to reason, and to that alone that 
we must appeal for truth. 

sciousness may be conceived of as simultaneous with the 
perfected thought, yet it must be subsequent to the move- 
ment of the mental machine — or a part of the machine — 
and be wholly dependent on the machine for its existence. 

This is no less true of ideas arising from meditation 
than of those springing from late impressions through the 
senses. No conscious thought ever existed in man but 
what had its origin in things without man j and hence ex- 
perience, either of the thinker, or of those who lived be- 
fore him, is and has been the only source of ideas. 

Even Thomas Dick, the great Christian philosopher, says : 
" The operations of mind can not be carried on without the 
intervention of external objects ; for if the material uni- 
verse had never existed, we could never have prosecuted a 
train of thought; * * * The whole train of ideas 
which passes through our minds on any subject may be 
considered as the images of external objects variously mod- 
ified and combined. These images we receive through the 
medium of our senses, by which we hold a communication 
with the material world. All our ideas of God. and of 
the Objects of religion, are derived from the same source. 1 ' 



62 NO BEGINNING 

If it be asked, what or why is reason ? Or 
why is it as it is ? A sufficient answer is : 
We do not know why anything in nature is; 
nor what it is other than to give it a name 
and to state, as far as we have learned, what 
its uses and functions are. 

To know is a property, an inherent apti- 
tude of the organism man. 

Matter, it is known, has properties, such 
as attraction, inertia, elasticity, etc. But 
all these properties do not belong to all 
matter. Each body and particle of matter 
possesses the property of attracting all other 
matter, but all bodies are not elastic ; which 
shows that matter has different properties 
in different forms and combinations. 

It is strange that man thinks, but it is in 
reality no stranger than that an elastic ball 
rebounds, or that water evaporates, or that 
a plant grows, or that a bird flies. 

The mind is impelled to think and to rea- 
son, as certainly as the engine is made to 
move by the pressure of the steam on the 
piston head ; and neither logic, metaphysics, 
psychology nor any other branch of study 
can do more than to discover to a certain 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 63 

extent the modes of mind ; and any attempt 
to get back of the phenomena of mind to 
any reason why it operates in a certain way 
is as futile, as it will be shown in this work 
to be illogical to try to get back of all 
things for a cause of all things. 

There is no reason why one body attracts 
another. There is no reason why a body 
falls three times as far the second second as 
it does the first. There is no reason why 
sound travels about thirteen miles a minute, 
or why carbon and oxygen unite under cer- 
tain conditions. 

And there is no reason why man thinks, 
or why he thinks in the manner he does. 
He simply thinks, and thinks in accordance 
with the laws of thought. 

As to the 7iow; the mode, of thought, much 
may be known; and yet to know the exact 
modus operandi in every mental process, 
from impressions made on the senses to the 
working out of the most intricate problem, 
would not enable a man to see any sharper 
or to reason any more accurately than he 
would without such knowledge; while to 
attempt to know too much, even of the laws 



64 NO BEGINNING 

of thought, may work confusion and lessen 
rather than increase one's power for the 
acquisition of more profitable knowledge. 11 
One of the greatest evils, possibly, of the 
old doctrine of the creation of the universe 
out of nothing, is the fact that all attempts 
at harmonizing such belief with human rea- 
son tend to lead the mind away from any 
solid basis of thought into the domain of 
mysticism, until it frequently happens with 
so-called great thinkers that — with slight 
changes in the quotation . 

" They scarcely understand their own intent, 
But silk-worm-like, so long within have wrought, 
That they are lost in their own web of thought." 12 



11 Berkeley, himself, a noted metapnysician, and who, 
in nis attempt to harmonize the doctrines of the church 
with reason, was led to deny the reality of all matter, 
makes the following admission as to the unprofitableness 
and possible danger to truth, of the study of mental phi- 
losophy. He says: "Upon the whole, I am inclined to 
think that the far greater part, if not all, of those diffi- 
culties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and 
blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to our- 
selves. That we have jfirst raised a dust, and then com- 
plain we cannot see." 

12. Professor Huxley says : "In this nineteenth cent- 
ury, as at the dawn of modern physical science, the cos- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 65 

That a knowledge of the laws of thought 
is not essential to correct reasoning, needs 
no other proof than the fact that but few of 
the men who have given the world its great- 
est discoveries have been ' ' Metaphysicians," 
and the further fact that the great masses of 
the people who reason correctly about the 
ordinary affairs of life know nothing of any 
such science. 

Yery similarly as good sight is entirely 
independent of any knowledge of optics, 
so is good reasoning independent of a 
knowledge of the modes of thought. 

And the fact that men think without con- 
scious effort is in itself proof that the mind 
is moved in its operations as surely as are 



mogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew is the incubus of 
the philosopher and the opprobrium of the orthodox. Who 
shall number the patient and earnest seekers after truth, 
from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives have been 
embittered and their good name blasted by the mistaken 
zeal of Bibliolaters r Who shall count the host of weaker 
men, w,hose sense of truth has been destroyed in the effort 
to harmonize impossibilities — whose life has been wasted 
in the attempt to force the generous new wine of Science 
into the old bottles of Judaism, compelled by the outcry of 
the same strong party ?" 



66 NO BEGINNING 

the movements of the lungs and heart occa- 
sioned by forces outside these organs. 

Nature is in perpetual action. Man men- 
tally as well as physically is a part of nature 
and is moved by forces external to himself. 
He is. an intricate piece of machinery, but 
can no more live and move and think with- 
out food and air than an engine can do its 
work without heat to generate steam. 

With reference to the operations of the 
vast machinery of nature man can learn 
much as to the how of things, but why 
things are thus and so it is futile to ask. 

One man asks of another, why doest thou 
this or that, and is entitled to an answer; 
but Nature never explains her actions. She 
submits to no cross-examination as to her 
purposes, if purposes there are. 

If ever she has spoken to man of herself, 
it has only been in that majestic and voice- 
less language becoming the dignity of om- 
nipotence, which reason alone interprets 
and condenses into these few sentences : 
Read my ways in my works. As to my 
purposes, if I have them, they are hidden 
beneath eternity. Before any light or mo- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 67 

tion was, they all were formed ; and neither 
the light of suns nor the more penetrating 
light of intellect is able to reveal them to 
man. 



CHAPTER III 

DEFINITION OF TRUTH— THE CROWNING GLORY OF MAN 
— A DUTY TO REASON — COMMONPLACE FACTS 

The writer trusts that by this time he has 
got the consent of most of his readers to 
reason fearlessly, though cautiously, with 
him ; but' no harm can come of the follow- 
ing further preliminary suggestions : 

We can not be too well founded in ele- 
mentary principles, and our delicate mental 
machinery can not be too nicely cleansed 
and balanced, when it sets about to know 
the exact truth of any important question. 

The mind must not refuse to act through 
a desire for that ease that comes from repos- 
ing in its old views, nor must it be blown 
from its true bearings by the winds of pas- 
sion or prejudice ; but it must be well 
poised, and always ready to turn towards 

68 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 69 

" the pole of truth," if exactness in conclu- 
sions is desired. 

At the expense, therefore, of being consid- 
ered unnecessarily tedious, by restating 
commonplace facts, the writer adds the fol- 
lowing thoughts to the introductory part of 
his work : 

Things exist ; forces and motion exist ; 
and man is able to look out on Nature, ob- 
serve her operations and learn her methods. 
He sees objects, witnesses transformations, 
and says of things ; they are thus and so, 
they act thus and so; and every assertion 
which correctly affirms of things what they 
are and how they act is a truth. 

Truths are not made, but found ; and it is 
the crowning glory of man that he is able to 
discover truth. 

Some truths are transitory and local; some 
are enduring and applicable everywhere. It 
rains, expresses a truth of this time and 
place. The sum of the angles of a triangle 
is equal to two right angles, is now, always 
has been, and always will be, everywhere, a 
truth. 

A truth is a verity ; a reality, as distin- 



70 NO BEGINNING 

guished from a conjecture, a hallucination 
or a belief. 

A belief maybe so; a truth is so. 

Many local and transient truths are di- 
rectly cognizable through the senses. We 
see, and hear, and feel things, and thus 
know of passing phenomena. 

General truths are discovered by means 
of j and only by means of reason ; or at least 
are only by reason known to be such. 

All truths are harmonious. 

They are of all degrees of importance but 
never conflict the one with the other. Each 
is content to fill its place in the great system 
of nature. All truth is sometimes said to 
be eternal. 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers." 

This may be said of the most ephemeral 
truth, in the sense that it is in harmony with 
nature. To say that it is cloudy, is to state 
a fact, that only exists possibly for a few 
moments and in a particular locality ; but 
such a truth is a verity. As to the present, 
it is; as to the past, it always was to be ; 






THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 71 

and as to the future, it had been ; and hence 
is a part of the very nature of things. 

To know what is true, then, is good, if 
anything is good. 

A truth is a thought of God, if there is 
a thinking God ; and an im|3erishable sou- 
venir from the depths of the illimitable 
ocean of time that will never decay, whether 
there is any God or not. 

Some truths are "self-evident, 1 ' because, 
in the present highly developed condition of 
the human intellect, they have become pri- 
mary judgments of the mind, and are uni- 
versally accepted without proof. 

Of these are the axioms of mathematics, 
such as : " Things that are equal to the same 
thing, are equal to each other"; " The 
whole is greater than any of its parts" ; 
and it is easy to see that such statements 
are unqualifiedly true at all times and 
places — are eternal truths. Before the sun 
shone, propositions like these were unques- 
tionable by any intelligence ; and, millions 
of years hence, will be the same axiomatic 
statements of uncreated and indestructible 
facts. 



72 NO BEGINNING 

Other statements, when first submitted 
for examination as to their truth or falsity, 
are not so readily passed upon, but are the 
subjects of more complex mental processes. 
When such a proposition is true, this char- 
acter may be determined if the mind has 
sufficient data ; and, when determined, the 
conclusion is as certain as is the self-evident 
truth. Any one of the propositions of 
geometry will furnish an example of this 
class of truths. Take for example, the fol- 
lowing, before referred to : "In every tri- 
angle the sum of the three angles is equal 
to two right angles." This is not self-evi- 
dent. To a person who knows nothing of 
geometry, such a proposition might never 
be presented. He might see many triangu- 
lar figures and not think of this peculiarity 
of all of them. And, if the proposition was 
stated to him, he might question its correct- 
ness and reasonably require proof ; but it is 
a universal truth, notwithstanding. 

If a million triangles be drawn at random, 
no two of which are alike, yet, it will be true 
of any one of them that the sum of the three 
angles is exactly equal to the sum of two 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 73 

right angles. So universally, in short, is 
this true that there can be no irreverence in 
stating, that the combined intelligence of 
the universe can not find an exception to the 
truth of the proposition as stated. 

It is truly the crowning glory of man, that 
he can discover truths that neither time, nor 
space, nor even Gods can change ! 

Truths of nature are invincible to any 
power, because they were not made, but are 
self-existent. And, let the reader mark 
well the fact that follows logically from this 
that man's belief, or preference, or supposed 
interest, or all these combined, have abso- 
lutely nothing to do with making or un- 
making such a fact. 

A triangle formed by a pope, the while 
praying his God to enable him to put to 
shame the reason of man by producing a 
figure that would be an exception to the 
proposition before stated, would, as certainly 
as the one accidentally drawn by a child, be 
found to attest the truth of the foregoing 
proposition as man had found it. 

Truths in regard to the motions of the 
heavenly bodies enable astronomers to cal- 



74 NO BEGINNING 

culate eclipses for centuries before they oc- 
cur. Arithmetic has its fundamental truths 
upon which rests the business of the world. 
In the science of medicine facts must lie at 
the bottom of successful practice ; and in 
law, good, true maxims must shape the 
course of justice. 

In all the history of man's struggle for 
light and life and progress, every fact dis- 
covered has been a new step in the grand 
stairway on which he has been, and still is, 
climbing towards his maximum greatness. 

" Facts are stubborn things," when in the 
presence of their would-be destroyers ; ris- 
ing when smitten, always ready for an en- 
counter, but as mild as the sun's rays when 
let alone in their own serene glory, or when 
mingling in harmony with their kind. More 
eternal than the hills and as inexorable as 
fate, wisdom commands that each man 
should bring himself, as far as the light of 
his reason enables him to do so, into har- 
mony with truth. 

Professor Tyndall has, perhaps to some 
extent unconsciously, furnished a beautiful 
argument in favor of pure reason as the 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 75 

truth- determining faculty of man's being, 
when moved by an earnest desire for abso- 
lute truth. He says: "The mind is, as it 
were, a photographic plate, which is gradu- 
ally cleansed by the effort to think rightly, 
and which, when so cleansed and not before, 
receives impressions from the light of 
truth." And this capability of the earnest 
and honest mind to receive truth, he calls 
inspiration; but at the same time, is careful 
to remind his readers that this "inward 
sight" to be reliable must be proved to be 
"in accordance with outward fact." 

If, therefore — let it be repeated — real 
truth is desired, there must be an effort to 
"think rightly"; there must be no preju- 
dices, and no self-interest swerving him from 
his desire to arrive at no conclusion other 
than the exact truth. 

But more than this is necessary. Con- 
ducting an argument is like building a 
house. Care must be taken that all the 
material used is sound. In the case of the 
building there must first come the founda- 
tion stone, then the next above this, and 
then the next, and so on until the top is 



76 NO BEGINNING 

reached. An unsound stone affects the 
strength of the structure wherever it may 
be placed, but it is evident that the lower 
down it is, the more dangerous. 

Now, a process of reasoning is very simi- 
lar ; one thing must be found to be true ; 
then another ; then another ; and as stone is 
placed upon stone in the house, so conlusion 
is drawn from conclusion, the one resting 
on the other. So that it is just as clear that 
an argument built on an erroneous premise 
or assumption will be unsound, as it is clear 
that a house will be defective when built 
upon or containing bad material. 

There is, however, this exception; that, 
in an argument where two or more false 
steps are taken, the conclusion may yet be 
correct — the one error having accidentally 
neutralized or corrected the other. 

The argument would still be bad, although 
the conclusion might be sound. But, as, in 
the house, if all the material and the work- 
manship are good the structure as a whole 
will be substantial; so, in reasoning, if the 
premises are true and the processes are cor- 
rect, the conclusion is sure to be a truth. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 77 

How extremely fortunate for our poor 
blundering race that two mistakes are some- 
times better than one ; that while one error 
sometimes leads man away, the second may 
conduct him back to the road of progress ! 
That while unfounded fear of enemies ahead 
has at times driven him to the woods, the 
confusion and difficulty of his progress in 
the jungle have unwittingly turned him 
towards the open way ! 

Marvelous indeed, is the principle of com- 
pensation running all through nature's 
works ! 

From the foregoing it must appear that it 
is right to reason. It seems to be so, else 
why have we reason \ It is so, because rea- 
son is the only means we have of discovering 
truth. And, if this is so, it is only stating 
the case a little more strongly to say that it 
is our duty to reason ; and on all subjects, in 
so far as one has the capacity and opportu- 
nity to do so. And that we are to reason 
at all demands that we are to do so honestly 
and fearlessly. 

As has been said, the study of logic is 
not necessary to good reasoning. This sci- 



78 NO BEGINNING 

ence— otherwise it would not be a science- 
does nob teach us how to reason but only 
how we do reason. 

Nature has endowed men with the faculty 
to reason ; and, if there is the requisite 
capacity and an effort to "think rightly," 
' ' impressions from the light of truth ' ' will 
come. 13 

Be sure of your facts — that your premises 
are sound — then, that your inferences are 
fair and necessary, and you may stand upon 
your conclusion as true. But, beware of 
assumptions. They are often necessary in 
searching for facts, but results based on 
them must always be verified, by their har- 



13. Even "the vast results obtained by Science " says 
Huxley, "are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental 
processes, other than those which are practiced by every 
one of us, in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A 
detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks 
made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by 
which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre 
from fragments of their bones. Nor does that process of 
induction and deduction by which a lady, finding a stain 
of a peculiar kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody 
has upset the inkstand thereon, differ in any ivay, in kind, 
from that by which Adams and Leverrier discovered a new 
planet. 1 ' 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 79 

mony with facts well determined, before 
being accepted as truths. 

Herbert Spencer states it thus : 

" No conclusion can lay claim to absolute 
truth but such as depend upon truths that 
are themselves absolute. Before there can 
be exactness in an inference there must be 
exactness in the antecedent propositions." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE QUESTION TO BE DISCUSSED— NEED OP FAITH IN 
MAN — FAITH IN FACTS IS EASY — MONSTROUS DOC- 
TRINES — REASON ALONE DEALS WITH CAUSE AND 
EFFECT — INSTINCT KNOWS NOTHING AND CARES NOTH- 
ING ABOUT THE CAUSES OF THINGS 

The writer now advances another step 
towards the direct discussion of the main 
question to be considered ; a question which 
on account of its seemingly stupendous pro- 
portions, has heretofore forbidden all at- 
tempts by the great majority of men at 
solution by human reason, to wit : the ques- 
tion as to whence came the universe ; or, 
the origin of the totality of things. 

Millions of people, perhaps, have thought 
of v this question and mentally inquired 
about it, but most of them have rested on 
the statement of others supposed to have 
superior knowledge in the matter, that it 
was both futile and sinful to seek for them- 
selves an answer. 

80 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 81 

It has been shown, however, that it is 
right to reason, necessary to reason, and a 
duty to reason ; that man is commanded by 
his very nature and his surroundings to 
think, in order to ascertain what is true and 
what is false. And why should he not, at 
least, satisfy the demands of his reason by a 
logical answer to this, as well as all other 
questions that force themselves on his atten- 
tion? 

The writer maintains that the question re- 
ferred to is not, in reality, an intricate one ; 
that it is simple, as all fundamental truths 
are simple, when once grasped by the mind. 
It involves in its scope all things, but on the 
principle that the same law that ' ' rounds a 
planet moulds a tear," it is no more diffi- 
cult to solve than it was difficult to discover 
the law of gravitation or the principle of 
action and reaction ; and, indeed, nothing 
like so difficult, for the correct answer to it 
is only, when properly viewed, a necessary 
inference from these and other now well 
determined general truths. 

It is, as will be shown further along, not 
really for lack of argument, but largely 



82 NO BEGINNING 

from a sort of superstitious fear of forming 
j ust and necessary inferences, that mankind 
do not even now quite generally accept the 
true solution of the question. 

Some of the ancients believed that the 
earth was a flat body and rested on some 
material substance. For the sake of seem- 
ing to be definite, they said it rested on the 
back of a huge tortoise and this on the sur- 
face of a mighty ocean ; but when asked 
what the ocean rested on, they shook their 
heads and looked so solemn as to literally 
frighten the inquirer away from his own 
thoughts, and compel him to be quiet, if 
not content, with the general statement, 
that it was impossible to know, and that it 
was a crime to be too very inquisitive about 
the matter. In other words, the priests of 
those days were like the clergy generally of 
later times, they wanted to hear no questions 
that were too deep for them or implied a 
doubt of the truth of their doctrines ; and 
succeeded to a great extent in closing both 
the mouths and the minds of the thinking 
classes. 

At this stage of our inquiry some such 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 83 

thoughts as these may arise : " Is each man 
to spend his life in continually solving prob- 
lems ? " " Is there to be no settled belief or 
view on such great questions as you are try- 
ing to deal with?" "Is it not impossible 
for each individual to answer for himself all 
the questions that an inquiring mind sug- 
gests?" "And is it, therefore, not necessary 
to have faith in the opinions and statements 
of others as to what is true ? " 

As the latter inquiry contains the practi- 
cal substance of them all, the writer will give 
attention to that alone ; and will say, that it 
is very important, and indeed indispensable, 
to the well-being and progress of the race 
that man should have faith in man, and be 
willing and able to accept as true such facts 
as may from time to time be gained by the 
investigations of his fellows. As we accept 
and use with gratitude material wealth given 
us by others, so should we take and appro- 
priate all the knowledge that we can gain 
from our contemporaries and from former 
generations. 

But as we eat of food given us only such 
as is agreeable to our palate and healthful, 



84 NO BEGINNING 

so we naturally accept only such statements 
of others as to what is true as are conform- 
able to our reason. If stones were be- 
queathed to us for bread, we would not eat 
them the sooner because of the statement of 
some book that they were the e very-day diet 
of our ancestors. 

It has been shown herein that reason leads 
to truth, and that truth and reason are har- 
monious; and this being so, truth will natu- 
rally be accepted when pure reason has the 
sway. 

Axioms of mathematics, after once being 
discovered, have never been doubted ; they 
are taken on faith. So of all the well estab- 
lished truths of science generally. A person 
may not know from any mental or practical 
test of his own that the square described on 
the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is 
equal to the sum of the squares described on 
the other two sides, but no person unless a 
fool has ever been an " unbeliever" in the 
truth of the proposition ; from the fact that 
he had no reason to doubt it. And the same 
might be said of ten thousand truths of 
mathematics, of natural philosophy, of as- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 85 

tronomy and of the other sciences ; and also 
of ten times ten thousand facts related in 
history. 

Faith in facts is easy. 

And no lack of restful, confiding faith, in 
what is in reality true, need ever be f e ared 
if men generally were to consent to let their 
reason rule. 

It is the lack of faith in improbable 
things, in things not consistent with experi- 
ence, in things not true, that has created 
the prevalent idea that men naturally doubt 
what is true,, on certain subjects. 

What a colossal absurdity is the old 
church idea that an infinitely wise and good 
personal Deity made man in such a manner 
that he naturally disbelieves those things 
which that same Deity made it man's duty 
to believe ! 

In other words, that G-od made man in 
such a manner that he naturally tends away 
from duty, and away from his own greatest 
good, and away from God's glory, and 
towards an endless state of suffering and 
hostility to his Creator ! 



BG NO BEGINNING 

No more monstrous doctrine ever came 
from the brain of ignorant, ghost-frightened, 
primeval man than that which teaches that 
the same faculty in man by means of which 
he preserves his own existence, cares for his 
helpless young, provides for tottering age, 
and that prompts him to countless acts of 
practical good ; the same faculty by means 
of which he has grown from barbarism to 
civilization ; the same faculty by means of 
which he has been enabled to appreciate his 
own dignity and the glories of Nature's 
works ; that this same faculty, that alone 
makes him at once both great and noble, 
should be so strangely fashioned as to 
lead him away from the greatest of all 
truths into irremediable error, and light 
his way to an endless helL It is the crown- 
ing apex of a monument of superstition 
erected in the infancy of the race, when 
spectres were thought realities and when 
facts could not be distinguished from 
phantasms. 

Experience, instead of leading to doubts 
of what is true, corroborates truth. Find a 
general truth, and a thousand minor facts are 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 87 

seen to point that way. The statement of a 
truth may not at once be accepted, on 
account of a failure to comprehend it, but it 
is not specially repulsive — is not thrown 
from the mind as some nauseating drug is 
expelled from the stomach; as is the case with 
many of the popular church doctrines." 

Even Bible writers, as evidenced by the 
legend of the forbidden fruit, liken the 
relish of reason for facts to the desire of the 
stomach for choice foods. 

Let us rest assured that if, in any sense, 
there is something in nature that u makes 



14. Such doctrines as the following, as instances : 
That God procured or permitted the cruel murder of his 
"only begotten " Son in order to make a way whereby a 
part of mankind (or even all) might escape just punish- 
ment. That God did " out of his mere good pleasure from 
all eternity elect some to everlasting life." That "The 
work of creation is God's making all things out of noth- 
ing." That " All mankind by their fall, lost communion 
with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made lia- 
ble to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to 
the pains of hell forever." That an all-powerful, all-wise 
and good being ever peopled a world of his own creation 
with other conscious intelligent beings and for " his own 
glory" either fore-ordained or permitted all the miseries 
of this life, saying nothing of the pains of a future end- 
less hell. 



88 NO BEGINNING 

for righteousness" or that bears towards 
"amelioration"; that if there is even rela- 
tively any "good time coming," it is because 
reason — the natural, unregenerate reason — 
of developed man, is in harmony with truth. 

In seeking to understand nature, facts are 
our only f ulcrums. 

Theologians answer the question: ' 'Whence 
came the Universe? " by saying that at some 
very remote, but indefinite time in the past, 
the substance of all things that now are was 
spoken into existence — created out of noth- 
ing — by the fiat of an eternal and self-exist- 
ent personal Deity. 15 Scientists find that 

15. The Westminister catechism says : "The work of 
creation is, God's making all things out of nothing, by the 
word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very 
good." 

Sir William Blackstone says: " Thus, when the Su- 
preme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of 
nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, 
from which it can never depart, and without which it 
would cease to be." 

The author, or authors, of "The Unseen Universe," a 
somewhat recent and very scholarly work, claiming- to be a 
scientific defense of the doctrine of the supernatural, says : 
•' Having thus classed our readers, they will now be anx- 
ious to learn our position. Let us begin by stating at once 
that we assume,, us absolutely self-evident, the existence of 
a Deity who is the creator of all things." 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 89 

there are now, and have been for a long and 
indefinite period of time, sufficient causes in 
nature for all that occurs, but many of them 
speak of an " ultimate cause" simply, as the 
foundation ; both seeming to agree that to 
human reason the question presents an un- 
solvable mystery, and that it is foolish, if 
not sinful, to attempt to think out an 
answer. 

The position of the writer, however, is 
that though the question may be, in the 
sense of absolute certitude, unknowable, yet 
inasmuch as the mind is constantly repeat- 
ing the inquiry, an answer is needed and 
should be given ; that, to say the least, there 
is no reason why the most logical conclu- 
sion should not be sought out and held as 
true, until it is found to be otherwise. 

There are many who do not believe in the 
supernatural origin of the Mosaic theory 
and cannot accept it as a final answer; and 
it is hard to see how dodging the question 
as being " unknowable, " is any reply to 
reason, when reason itself suggests the 
inquiry. 

The writer believes that reason alone can 



90 NO BEGINNING 

answer the question satisfactorily to itself ; 
and it was that his reason might be satisfied 
that he ventured to think on the subject. 
Some sort of theory will be held ; some 
answer, however vague or erroneous, will be 
given ; let the world — the masses of the peo- 
ple — have at any rate the [ best hypothesis 
possible. If this is the true solution it will 
so harmonize with other known facts as to 
grow into a living and helpful truth ; and if 
it is erroneous, it will fail of verification and 
die as other errors have died. 

The writer s belief is that there was no 
" first cause," or " beginning" for the uni- 
verse ; and to the attempt at demonstrating 
this truth he will presently proceed. 

The proposition that he will endeavor to 
demonstrate to be true, may be stated in the 
following form : 

All tilings that now are always, in sub- 
stance or in some form, were. 

He asserts that the common-sense and 
only logical answer to the inquiry as to the 
origin of the universe in its totality is that 
it always was. 

He insists that matter is eternal ; that 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 91 

force is eternal ; that life in a sense is 
eternal ; and, that whatever now is always 
in essence was — that the universe consid- 
ered in its oneness, as a whole, is a self -ex- 
istent, ever-acting and eternal verity. He 
believes in reality, and believes that the 
universe, thus considered, is the great 
reality. 

To some minds the above proposition will 
doubtless appear to be a self-evident truth. 
So rapidly does the trained mind think ; so 
quickly is inference drawn from known 
facts, and conclusions reached, that many 
propositions, which are in reality the results 
of logical processes, appear to be primitive 
apprehensions of the mind, or revelations 
directly to the consciousness. Indeed, what 
are termed by logicians primitive judgments 
are not fixed quantities, so to say, applicable 
to all grades of intellect, but vary some- 
what with the mental powers of the rea- 
soners. 

It is claimed, as has been said, by some 
that the origin of the totality of things is 
unknowable ; and by others that it was un- 
knowable until the origin itself spoke and 



92 NO BEGINNING 

said : "I am lie that made all things." 
Still others claim that the existence of a first 
cause or a Creator of all that exists is known 
to man, not by ratiocination, but instinct- 
ively -, and hence, according to all these 
views, reason should not be invoked on the 
question. 

The doctrine that holds generally that cer- 
tain truths are only discernible by conscious- 
ness or faith, has been disposed of , but the 
writer wishes here to show, specially, that 
neither instiDct nor intuition, nor anything 
else than reason ever deals with the question 
of cause and effect. 

Instinct proper knows nothing, and cares 
nothing, of the causes of things. The appre- 
hension of a relationship between cause and 
effect — the thought that particular things 
have causes, may, possibly, form the divid- 
ing line between instinct and reason ; but 
the idea generally of causation, that would 
carry the mind back far enough to make it 
inquire as to the cause of things in general, 
is a product of the understanding — a result 
of intellectual processes, beyond any ques- 
tion 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 93 

This will be made clear to the reader by 
the following comparison between the real- 
ization of the quality of extension and that 
of causation : 

The mind arrives at its conception of the 
reality of the quality of extension by first 
perceiving an object, then by further noting 
that the object is extended (has size), and 
this quality having been found to belong to 
all objects thus apprehended, the quality of 
extension becomes a reality in the mind. 

It is clear that the idea of extension is 
more than an intuition or a mere perception. 
We have, first, an object, second, an ex- 
tended object, and third, the quality of 
extension. 

And, similarly, we arrive at the idea of 
causation : Here we have, first, an object, 
second, a caused or formed object, and third, 
caused objects, or causation. The object or 
thing itself is the logical antecedent of 
caused object or thing, and the latter the 
logical antecedent of caused things, or caus- 
ation. 

The idea that things generally have causes 
is, therefore, not an original element of 



94 NO BEGINNING 

thought, but an effect coming from the exer- 
cise of the mental faculties. 

It may seem to be an intuition, but it is, 
in fact, a product of reason ; so that it can 
not be said that man ever arrived at the be- 
lief in a first cause otherwise than by an 
exercise, to some extent, of his reasoning 
faculties. 

Tliat the reasoning which started out with 
the premise "things ham causes" and 
stopped at an uncaused thing, as the answer 
to the inquiry, "whence came the totality of 
things?" was extremely superficial, it will 
he the special aim of this little work to show. 

Now, therefore, the question of whence 
came the universe, is a question for reason 
and for reason alone to answer. 

She has answered to the complete satisfac- 
tion of the writer; and the following are 
some of the mental processes upon which 
that answer is based : 



CHAPTER V 

NO FIRST CAUSE, A DEMONSTRATION 

First Argument 

First. Something is. This is the first 
fact. It is more certain than any axiom or 
demonstration. It is the foundation of all 
logic and all thought. 

In this absolute certainty, ' ' we live, move 
and have our being." 

Second. Something was. " Every par- 
ticular thing or event has a cause," is 
universally admitted to be a truth. It is 
a primitive and necessary judgment of the 
mind. An equivalent of this is, present 
events have causes ; and this is, in turn, 
equivalent to the statement, something was 
in time past. And, hence, if the proposi- 
tion ''something is" is the first fact, 
u something was" is the second. As 
" something is " underlies all thought, 
" something was" is one of the first pro- 



96 NO BEGINNING 

ducts of thought ; and it is just as abso- 
lutely certain that something was in the 
past as it is certain that something is now. 
Therefore, 

Something is=Something was. 

Third. There was always something. 
We have found that something existed in 
time past. If something was yesterday or 
a thousand years ago, or a million years ago, 
that something or event had a cause ; be- 
cause " every particular thing or event has 
a cause," and this judgment must apply to 
things or events existing at any conceivable 
time in the past — not being limited to things 
or events existing at any particular time, 
but being a universal truth. 

And if events or things existed at any con- 
ceivable time in the past and had causes, 
then things (such causes) existed prior to 
any conceivable or assignable time in the 
past, or always. For it is mathematically 
true that when we have reached the limit 
of assignable quantity we have reached in- 
finity. 

Again, there was always something or else 
there was a time when nothing existed. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 97 

But the latter cannot be, for in such a case, as 
Paley and other natural theologians admit, 
44 that condition must have continued; the 
universal blank must have remained." The 
mind cannot conceive of something coming 
from nothing. 
Therefore, 

Something is= Something was= 

There was always something. 

Or, Something is=There was always 

something. 

Fourth. All things in some form or in 
substance always were. We have seen that 
we cannot conceive of anything existing 
without a cause— of something coming from 
or out of nothing — and that, therefore, there 
was always some thing or things in exist- 
ence. 

Now, if there was always of necessity 
some thing or things, the substance of other 
and all things always existed ; for to admit 
that any one thing could come from nothing 
is to surrender the whole argument, and to 
assert the very opposite of our premise, ' ' all 
things have causes." 

If each particular thing or event has a 



98 NO BEGINNING 

cause, all particular things and events have 
causes. 

The foundation of the judgment, every 
particular event or thing has a cause 3 is the 
impossibility of conceiving of something 
coming from nothing. Now, if some of the 
things that are, always in essence were, all 
must have always been, or a part have come 
from nothing ; and this cannot be. 

Therefore, logically, we are forced to con- 
clude that all things in some form always 
existed, and our equation can be extended 
as follows : 

Something is=Something was=Some- 
thing always was=all things in sub- 
stance always were. 

Or, Something is=All things in sub- 
stance ALWAYS WERE. 

And from this mathematical statement, it 
becomes clear that it is just as certain that 
all things in substance always were, as it is 
certain that something now is. 

Conclusion : All things that now are, 
having always in essence existed, causes , 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 99 

always existed, and there can not have been 
a u first cause." 

Second Argument 

We seek for causes of things only because 
observation and experience have taught us 
that particular things have causes ; and be- 
cause of our inability to conceive of some- 
thing coming from nothing. 

To admit, therefore, that there was a first 
cause is to admit that one thing existed 
without a cause ; because a first cause must 
have been uncaused. Clearly, if it was 
caused it could not be the first cause. 

It is, therefore, absolutely impossible to 
reason, from the premise, "things have 
causes," to a first cause. 

And as this is the only premise there is on 
which to base any process of reasoning on 
the question, it is clear that the doctrine of 
a first cause can not be defended by human 
reason— by any process of ratiocination — 
and is, therefore, not a rational doctrine. 

Third Argument 
As something can not come from nothing, 
and everything has a cause, it is evident 



100 NO BEGINNING 

that that cause must be a whole and suffi- 
cient cause. 

Therefore, the cause can not be less in 
potency or energy than the effect. Let us 
see if it can be greater. It is one of the 
recent discoveries of science — and conform- 
able to reason — that neither matter nor force 
can be destroyed or lost. If this is true, it 
follows that the cause can not be greater 
than its effect ; for, otherwise, a part of the 
energy of the cause would have been lost. 

Therefore, a cause being neither greater 
nor less than its effect must be equal to it, 
and we have : 

CAUSES=THEIR EFFECTS, AND EFFECTS= 
THEIR CAUSES. 

Now, let A represent a given effect and B, 
its cause ; we have then A=B ; and if C rep- 
resents the cause of B it must equal B, and 
we have : A=B=C ; and by continuing this 
process, however far into the past, we h'nd a 
limitless succession of equivalent causes and 
effects. 

It is therefore an absolute and necessary 
conclusion that no effect can be found with- 
out a sufficient and equivalent cause. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 101 

It is also an irresistible conclusion that 
every cause is also an effect, and if so, no 
1 ' first cause ' ' can exist, because a first cause 
cannot likewise be an effect. 



CHAPTER VI 

OTHER AND SHORTER MENTAL PROCESSES LEADING TO 
THE SAME CONCLUSION 

1. Either it is true that there was always 
something, or there was a time when noth- 
ing existed, and all things have come from 
nothing. 

We cannot conceive of the latter, so the 
former statement must be true ; and if there 
was always anytliing, there could not have 
been a first cause of things. 

2. If ever there was a time when nothing 
was, we cannot, owing to our inability to 
conceive of nonentity as the antecedent of 
what now is, reasonably affirm such a propo- 
sition ; and if not, no first cause is de- 
manded and does not in reason exist. 

3. Something is ; and it is only necessary 
to continue the truth of this proposition in- 
definitely into the past — look upon it as a 
general or eternal truth — to make it synony- 

102 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 108 

mous with the statement : there was always 
something. And if there was always some- 
thing, there never was a first cause. 

4. It is illogical to seek a cause of all 
things in their entirety, from the fact that, 
mentally, the- universe must first be annihi- 
lated in order to affirm its creation. 

The fact that it is now, and was in time 
past, which are both facts of individual ex- 
perience, necessitates the inference, at least, 
that it always was. And to ignore this rea- 
sonable probability derived from all known 
facts, and affirm the opposite aa ithout any 
facts to sustain the proposition, is simply to 
abandon reason entirely. 

5. Endless succession of events — of causes 
and effects — is in harmony with reason and 
experience ; and is mentally a restful doc- 
trine ; while (admitting that such a thing 
may be conceivable) an eternal absence of 
activity in nature is obnoxious to reason and 
in conflict with all our positive knowledge 
of things. 

6. Events are occurring now ; and have 
been occurring at every moment of time for 
thousands of years ; and, if weight is given 



104 NO BEGINNING 

to the testimony of geologists, for millions 
of years in the past. And, applying to the 
question under consideration the doctrine 
of probability or chance, there would seem 
not to be any limit to the chain of events ; 
and if the chain of causes and effects is 
infinite, it has no first link, or beginning. 16 



16. Paley, in his work on " Natural Theology," in at- 
tempting to prove the existence of a personal Deity as a 
first cause from the evidences of design in nature, was led 
by the necessities of the case into making the statement 
that an "infinite series " of natural things as much needs a 
designer as a " finite series," and that "J. chain composed 
of an infinite number of links, can no more support itself, 
than a chain composed of a finite number of links.'''' 

He found in nature what seemed to him to be contriv- 
ances. He knew, and so states, that a contrivance must 
have an antecedent contriver. He also noted the fact that 
in nature one thing was the cause of other things, and that 
all his so-called contrivances appeared as series. He found 
what he chose to call "second causes " and was compelled 
to go back step by step into the past for his supernatural 
artificer, and was thus brought face to face with the alter- 
native of either admitting that an endless series did away 
with the necessity of a supernatural contriver, or of deny- 
ing this proposition. 

Of course he had to deny. His artificer must be super- 
natural and must also be anterior to the contrivance, for it 
was a God outside of nature that he was contending for. 
He may have been able to conceive of a beginning for in- 
finity — of a first link in an infinite number of links, but 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 105 

the writer is not, and to the contrary asserts that as an infi- 
nite number of things cannot be counted, just so certainly 
is a first cause of things absolutely inconceivable and un- 
thinkable. The writer's position is — and the whole ques- 
tion of the existence of a first cause is really reduced to 
the truth or falsity of this one assertion — that an endless 
or infinite chain is and mu3t be self-supporting ; for the 
very simple reason that it has no first link; — except only in 
case it is conceived of as being supported along its entire 
length, and it is not this conception of the matter that is 
now being dealt with ; for in this argument, as to the ex- 
istence of a first cause, it is only the question of something 
anterior to the chain of natural events that need be con- 
sidered. 

Paley admits that this chain can be conceived of as eter- 
nal ; but he says, in effect, that it cannot be so, for the 
reason that " Nothing contrived can, in a strict and proper 
sense, be eternal, forasmuch as the contriver must have ex- 
isted before the contrivance." His position in brief is that 
we might conclude that the chain of natural causes and: 
effects was endless if it were not for the evidence that ap- 
pears in nature, that the universe is a contrivance. The 
sounder position, however, is to say that the chain of causes 
and effects is necessarily endless, and, therefore, whatever 
evidence there may be that nature is a contrivance must be. 
reconciled with this fact. 



CHAPTER VII 

EXPLANATION OF TERMS, ETC. 

In the foregoing arguments, and through- 
out this work, "reason" when used to 
designate a faculty is intended to embrace 
all of those powers in man which, in the 
aggregate, enable him to distinguish reality 
from what is only fanciful or imaginary — 
every thing that goes to make up man's 
rational nature. 

By "thing or event" is meant anything, 
from the smallest particle of matter, or the 
most insignificant phenomenon, up to the 
whole of things existing at any particular 
time, that is cognizable by man's rational 
nature. 

By the "totality of things'' is meant 
every thing in the aggregate, that now is, or 
ever has existed ; the imponderable as well 
as the ponderable ; the gases as well as the 

106 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 107 

rocks ; the star-dust as well as the planets ; 
the invisible as well as the visible, the un- 
known as well as the known. 

And the term "nature" is used in that 
broad sense which embraces all that exists 
or has existed in the past, mind and other 
forms of force as well as all kinds of matter. 

The writer is aware that there has been 
to some extent a repetition of the same 
thoughts, but he hopes that aid instead of 
confusion to the reader may be the result. 
The formal arguments are only skeletons, as 
it were, and reference is made to all the 
matter of the book as affording covering and 
additional strength for these naked frame- 
works of truth. 

The writer deems it also desirable here, in 
order that the aim and scope of all he has to 
say may be fairly understood, to impress 
upon the reader's mind the fact that this 
work is intended to antagonize the general 
belief in a God or Deity, only in so far as 
such belief affirms the personality of Deity, 
makes Him the ' ' Creator ' ' of what is usu- 
ally termed the material or visible universe, 



108 NO BEGINNING 

and gives Him an existence anterior to, and 
outside of nature. 

That nature always was, and that there- is 
nothing outside of nature, is the substance 
of all that is intended to be herein affirmed 
on this general question. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FORMAL ARGUMENTS CONDENSED 

And now, for fear the reader may lose his 
bearings by not having in mind exactly how 
the argument stands, let the foregoing rea- 
soning be condensed, as it may be in sub- 
stance, into the following 

syllogism : 
Major premise. 

No uncaused thing or event ever existed; 
Minor premise, 

A first cause, if it ever existed, was an un- 
caused thing or event; 
Conclusion, 

Therefore, no first cause ever existed. 

Is there any escape from this argument ? 
Let us see. If the premises are admitted to 
be true, there is, of course, no way of avoid- 
ing the conclusion. 

And what rational objection can there be 
raised to the premises % 

109 



110 NO BEGINNING 

The writer sees none. As to the first pre- 
mise, this cannot reasonably be disputed 
from the fact, as has been shown, that it is 
upon this primary judgment of the intellect 
that rest all inquiries as to the causes of 
things. 

It is clear that the mind can not admit 
that even one thing can exist without a 
cause, as this would destroy the reality of 
the quality of causation and undermine all 
reasoning on the question. 

As to the second premise, as stated, no 
one will fail to see the certainty of the 
statement that a first cause is uncaused ; so 
that there only remains that portion which 
declares a first cause to be a thing or event. 

Does the reader doubt the truth of this 
part of the premise? If so, on what 
ground ? 

Will he claim that he believes in a per- 
sonal intelligence who was self-existent, un- 
created, and who, in his own good time, 
spoke all things (other than Himself) into 
being ; and that he denies that such person- 
ality was a ' ' thing "or u event ' ' in the sense 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 111 

in which those words are used in the pre- 
mises ? 

The writer insists that this is the only way 
by which even an attempt can be made to 
escape the full force of the syllogism. And 
if this objection is made, the writer repeats 
the above inquiry : On what grounds % 

Why is not the "first cause" you have 
thought to be a reality, a thing \ 

As has been stated elsewhere, natural 
theologians generally admit that the per- 
sonal " Creator," that they insist was a first 
cause, is something. They claim that He is 
a reality ; the most real, in fact, of all things. 

Now, if He is anything and not all things, 
lie is a part of all that is ; and if a part, 
only, of the totality of things he is a thing 
in the legitimate sense of the word. 

If, therefore, there is any other way of 
avoiding the force of the syllogism than to 
assert that the first cause of the theologians 
is not a thing, but the totality of things — all 
things that are or ever have been in sub- 
stance — the writer is unable to find it. 

Does the reader so claim % 

If so, let him take this stand if he chooses; 



112 NO BEGINNING 

and he will find, that he has thereby com- 
mitted himself to the very position held by 
the writer ; when the latter 5 s position shall 
have been fully defined. He will find that 
his theism, in reality, is a different kind 
from what he had supposed. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE TERM "BEGINNING" IS GENERALLY USED ONLY AS 
A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE — MOSES DOES NOT POSI- 
TIVELY AFFIRM A BEGINNING — SOME QUERIES 

It has now been established by proofs„as 
incontrovertible as the universally accepted 
demonstrations of mathematics that no 
4 'first cause" or " beginning "of things — 
using the word things in its general and 
broadest sense — ever did in fact exist. 

And it must be evident by this time, to 
any reader, that the term "beginning" has 
only, heretofore, been used as a matter of 
convenience — as a kind of resting place for 
minds that did not care, from some motive 
or another, to follow up their reasoning on 
the question of cause and effect to its final 
and necessary conclusion. 

As in the case of any particular object we, 
for convenience, say that a certain house 
had a beginning when the foundation was 

113 



114 NO BEGINNING 

laid, or when the plans were ordered or 
completed, or when the owner came into 
the possession of means with which to build 
it, so it has been with the universe as a 
whole ; men have gone back as far as it was 
convenient for them to go, and then stopped 
and said, "Here was the beginning'' ; al- 
though, as has been before stated, no one 
has ever yet been able to fix any definite 
time or even any definite condition of 
things as the starting point. 

Even the author of "Genesis" was too 
intelligent to attempt to fix a definite time — 
or any time in reality — for the commence- 
ment of " creation." 

He says : "In the beginning, God created 
the heaven and the earth ' ' ; which when 
looked at critically, simply means that 
"when God created the heaven and the 
earth He created them." And this is just 
as explicit a statement, and no more so, 
than it would be for a person, when asked 
when and how a certain chair was made, to 
say ; " when the man that made it, made it, 
it was made." 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 115 

Moses assumes a " beginning,' ' and then 
says, at the time of that beginning, without 
attempting to say when it was, some power 
made the " heaven and the earth" — mean- 
ing, evidently, all things, other than what 
Iip includes in the word u God." 

Of course, if the universe had a begin- 
ning, it then began tc be, and some power 
produced it. 

Subsidiary to these latter reflections and 
as bearing on the general question, it might 
not be profitless for the reader to ponder a 
little over these two queries : 

1st. If no particular thing has a begin- 
ning so far as we know, except in an imper- 
fect sense— a sense adopted by the mind as 
a matter of convenience — why should we 
expect to find, logically, a beginning for the 
aggregate of things \ 

2d. If the only account of u Creation-" 
depended on by advocates of the doctrine 
of a beginning of things, and claimed to 
have been " inspired," fails to set any time 
for such beginning, or to positively affirm it, 
why is the doctrine of a beginning so stren- 
uously held to be true and necessary ? 



CHAPTER X 

ETERNITY OF MATTER, FORCE AND PHENOMENA— NEW 
HEAVENS AND NEW EARTHS — THOUGHT PRODUCED BY 
MATTER IN MOTION, AND THE ACTIVITIES OF NATURE 
AFFORD THE ONLY SCOPE FOR ITS RATIONAL EXERCISE 

It will be seen that the foregoing argu- 
ments apply not only to the theory that all 
matter, so called, was once formed from 
nothing, but also to the doctrine that admits 
the eternity of matter in some crude and 
chaotic condition, but asserts that there was 
still a beginning of form, activity s and suc- 
cession of events in nature. 

In demonstrating an endless series of 
causes and effects, an endless chain of events 
has likewise been proven ; and the activity 
of the universe, as well as the existence of 
matter has been traced back to the limit of 
assignable time, and, therefore, to eternity. 

Force as well as matter has been included 
in what are designated as things ; and it is 
just as impossible to conceive of force com- 
ing from no -force as matter coming from no- 

116 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 117 

matter. By nonentity is meant an absence 
of force as well as an absence of matter. 

Matter, as has been said, has been demon- 
strated to be indestructible ; and by a more 
recent, but no less certain discovery of sci- 
ence, force has been found to possess this 
same property. 

There is no doubt but the material of the 
world was once in a chaotic condition, as 
compared with its present form. And if 
it should be admitted that the whole sub- 
stance of the universe was once a formless 
mass, it does not follow, by any means, that 
it had always before been in that condition. 

We can readily conceive of local or of 
even general temporary " chaos," for this is 
consistent with the changing active charac- 
ter of nature ; but a dead universe strikes 
the mind as an infinite absurdity. 17 

17. Motion is as natural as rest. It is just as much a 
truth of philosophy that a particular body of matter when 
in motion, will forever remain in motion unless stopped by 
some force outside itself, as it is that a body once at rest 
will always remain so unless put in motion by an extra- 
neous force. 

The prevalent idea that the natural condition of matter 
is that of rest doubtless came from the fact that, owing to 
the attraction of the earth, most bodies on its surface arfc 



118 NO BEGINNING 

In nature the old is constantly giving way 
to the new ; and hence, destruction of pres- 
ent forms is as necessary as is the formation 
of what is to be. 



held permanently in one place ; and to a great extent in 
this local sense the idea is a true one. But it is only true 
in a local and relative view of things ; for, generally speak- 
ing, it is as true, that when a body is still, it is because it 
is held in place, as it is true, that when a body is in motion 
it is because it has been moved. 

In emphasizing, however, the naturalness of motion, it 
should be said, that in the above statement of the property 
of inertia in matter, no regard is had to what is called its 
chemical action. The particles of matter making up a 
body are moved by inherent forces — the atoms attracting 
or repelling each other as conditions change; and so uni- 
versal is this disposition of atoms to activity, that it is 
truthfully said that "all matter, as far as we can ascertain, 
is ever in movement." Most of our solid bodies contract 
and expand with changes of temperature, and it is a fact 
of universal experience that temperature is forever varying. 
It is also a thought worth taking here, that the tempera- 
ture of a body is itself nothing but the motion of the atoms 
composing the body, that heat and cold are but words to 
express the relative activity of matter, that a body is only 
heated or cooled as its atoms take on or lose motion. 

With these things in mind, it is seen that the apparent 
rest of particular bodies does not argue that the great 
whole of matter ever was, or ever will be at rest; for this 
state of certain parts only exists because of the conditioned 
character of separate bodies. It therefore becomes clear 
that there is no reason why the totality of matter should 
be conceived of as ever being in a state of rest. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 119 

So-called chaotic conditions may exist 
and at the same time be necessary to the 
transitions constantly going on. 

With man, old material is often useless, 
or nearly so, and destruction and decay 
mean permanent loss ; but it is not so in 
nature. 

Here may lie apparently a formless mass, 
but touched anew by other masses, form 
ensues, and life and activity is the result. 

As the carbon of the wood or coal only 
awaits the proper condition to unite with 
the oxygen of the air to form a gas and 
enter into blooming life, so everywhere — 
around, above, below — in space apparently 
dead matter is constantly leaping into life ; 
and life is as constantly assuming what ap- 
pears to be death, but which in reality is 
only another form of force. 

So that it does not follow from the admis- 
sion of a chaotic condition of things that 
eternal chaos ever was a fact. 

And though the universe, viewed as a 
oneness, may have been at one time a vast 
chaotic mass, it does not follow that it had 
always been such ; for it is much more 



120 NO BEGINNING 

thinkable to suppose that all the once active 
or subsequently active energies were, for 
the time — an instant it may have been, 
potential in the mass. 

And this seems, also, to be the clear 
teaching of science — a necessary deduction 
from the admitted theory of the indestructi- 
bility of matter and force. 

It is hardly to be doubted that if all the 
matter of the universe were at once drawn 
into one body, a relatively chaotic condition 
of things would be the result ; but at the 
same time every particle of formative energy, 
before existing, would be preserved, and a 
new universe — new heavens and new earths — 
would be produced. 

Actual, real chaos — if it is proper to call 
it such — would be but for the " twinkling of 
an eye," like the stopping of an elastic ball 
thrown against a hard substance. It stops, 
but every particle of its matter is thrilled 
with life and energy, and the rebound at- 
tests the fact that, as a ball, it had been for 
an instant at rest, but was still alive. 

Indeed, it is well-nigh demonstrable that 
such would be the case ; that, as with the 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 121 

destruction of one particular form other 
forms are produced, so with the destruc- 
tion of the present phenomenal universe as 
a whole, another universe would take its 
place. 18 



18. It is not impossible, for a person impressed with 
certain well known truths in regard to the nature of mat- 
ter, to conceive of new worlds being produced upon the 
destruction of any one of the present systems; or, if the 
matter of the universe is thought of as limited in space, to 
conceive of a new universe being formed in the event of 
the dissolution of the whole present fabric of nature — and 
all this through the operation of natural forces. Heat is 
now believed to be nothing but motion. Every body of 
matter attracts every other body. Forces are correlated 
and are, as well as matter, supposed to be indestructible. 

It is a known property of matter that a body, when once 
in motion, remains forever in motional the same velocity 
and in the same straightforward direction, unless it be 
changed in its speed or course, by some force outside 
itself. 

It is known that one force may be converted into other 
forces, and that the motion of the particles of matter, com- 
posing a body, may be converted into the motion of other 
masses of matter. 

It is also known that the energy expended in putting a 
body in motion is communicated to the moving body, and 
that it is all given out again while such body is being 
brought to a state of rest. 

There is but little room for doubt, that all the matter 
composing our solar system was at one time one body in 
some liquid or gaseous condition, and that the earth and 



122 NO BEGINNING 

other planets were formed and set in motion by large por~ 
tions of this matter being thrown into space by the rapid 
rotation of the original mass. The fact that all the planets 
move around the sun in the same general direction, and in 
the same direction in which the sun rotates, and that their 
diurnal motions are all substantially in the same direction, 
argues powerfully in favor of this theory. And the mar- 
velous poise of the earth in its orbit can only be accounted 
for by concluding that there exists a perfect equilibrium 
between the two powers of attraction and centrifugal force 
— a condition which could only have been established oy 
such a weighing of one of these forces against the other 
as would result in case the earth originated in the manner 
above suggested. 

And if the earth and other planets were once a part of 
the sun, it is but reasonable to suppose that they will all at 
some time return again to the parent body. In such case 
the present system would have been destroyed, but what 
would be the most reasonable th in s" to expect? If once be- 
fore all had been united, and, by reason of the accumulated 
energy of the great mass, portions of matter had been cast 
far away into space, and worlds thus formed, it is certainly 
not unreasonable to suppose that a similar result would 
follow any subsequent consolidation of the same masses of 
matter. There is no doubt but that, if our earth were now 
to fall directly into the sun, an amount of energy would be 
produced by the impact of the two bodies exactly equiva- 
lent to the force required to throw the earth back to its 
present position ; and the same is true of each of the plan- 
ets. Whether or not all the energy that would be given 
out into space by a gradual decrease in the orbital motion 
of the earth, and the consequent gradual return of this 
body to the sun, would remain within the bounds of the 
present solar system, to be utilized in the formation of a 
new system, must necessarily be largely a matter of specu- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 123 

And further, in this same line of thought, 
it can fairly be said that as no single body is 
exactly alike at different times, neither is 
the universe as a whole alike at any two 
instants of time. 

A man of a year ago, or an hour ago, was 
not exactly like what he is now. Neither 
was a river, a mountain, or a world. So new 



lation; but it is not unreasonable to suppose that it would; 
or at least that, in the event of loss, such waste would be 
made good by accumulations of energy from outside 
sources. 

If it be assumed that a mass of matter in free space 
would, by reason of being heated to a high degree of tem- 
perature or on account of any other necessitated condition, 
take on a rotary motion, it becomes as easy to see how a 
system of worlds would result from any vast accumulation 
of matter in outer space, as it is to understand the play of 
forces in any natural operation. If the matter is conceived 
of as scattered, attraction would bring it together, and en- 
ergy and motion would result. If it is thought of as al- 
ready aggregated, the pressure of the outer portions, and 
the natural dispo?ition of the minute particles of matter, 
when in close proximity, to war with each other, would 
keep it in constant activity. 

The way that matter has acted in the past, produced the 
present system of nature, and it is only required of us to 
apply that familiar rule of judging the future by the past 
to conclude, that should the present universe be destroyed 
anew one would spring into being. Nature is immortal — 
44 it lives and cannot die." 



124 NO BEGINNING 

heavens, and new earths and new universes 
are constantly forming out of the old. 

Most transitions are slow. Others may be 
sudden and grand beyond the power of 
human imagination to conceive, but still all 
is change ; all is transition ; and nature with 
its changes and transitions is all that we 
can know, and all there is to know. 

To think is to know, and to think is to 
have our organism acted on by matter in 
motion. Knowledge comes from and is pro- 
duced by matter in motion. 19 Were there 



19. There is scarcely any doubt but that for every dif 
ferent thought there is a corresponding and different move- 
ment or arrangement of the matter of the brain. And, if 
so, it seems that the whole question of the source of our 
ideas — as to whether or not they have any supernatural ori- 
gin, whether or not they are innate in the mind, considered 
as an entity apart from the body — is involved in the one 
simple inquiry: Are ideas the result of movements of the 
matter of the brain, or are the movements of the brain the 
result of the ideas? Most questions, however important, 
may be reduced to some simple form, and this inquiry 
seems in its scope to cover the whole of the much debated 
question of " innate ideas"; and by stating the case in 
this condensed form there does not seem to be much room 
for dispute. 

It is unquestionably true that sensation produces thought 
— that our ideas depend greatly on the character of sensa- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 125 

no matter, there would be no motion and no 
knowledge. 

Knowledge results from the activity of 
matter, and is bounded by matter and its 
activities, on all sides. Matter in motion is 
not only a condition precedent to the exist- 
ence of knowledge but its limitation as well. 

The activities of the universe, therefore, 



tion; and the greater portion of our ideas being known to 
be the result of the agitation of the brain through the 
nerves, and no other source of any idea being known, it 
must, be unreasonable to claim that some of our ideas have 
a different origin. 

As to the nature of thought, or the question of whether 
or not the " mind " ever becomes an entity, in some sense 
of the word, distinct from the body, it is not necessary here 
to speculate, for whatever may be said or believed on these 
questions, the truth must remain, that the mind, spoken of 
" in the terras of matter," is a product of the body; and 
this being true, and thought being a product of the mind, 
it must oe a product of the body also. So that in man's 
present state of existence it is above truthfully said that, 
" to think, is to have our organism acted on by matter in 
motion." 

Whatever thought is, it emanates from the brain of man. 
and, philosophers of the old " metaphysical " type to the 
contrary notwithstanding, it is here respectfully submitted 
whether or not it is nor unphilosophical to attempt to go 
further back in our search for the origin of all ideas than 
the organisms from which they arise and their present and 
past surroundings. 



126 NO BEGINNING 

afford the only scope for the exercise of 
rational thought, and, this being true, it is 
supremely absurd to affirm a beginning or 
an end of succession. And, if it is irra- 
tional to deny the eternity of succession, 
it is of course rational to affirm it. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE ETERNITY OF SUCCESSION IN HARMONY WITH ALL 
OTHER KNOWLEDGE— REACH OF THEISTIC ARGUMENTS — 
FURTHER OF THE SOURCE AND CHARACTER OF HUMAN 
KNOWLEDGE 

The certainty of the eternity of the sub- 
stance of things and of succession is assured 
on the ground of the harmony of the doc- 
trine with all other knowledge. There is 
not one fact, of all the countless millions of 
facts known to man, but what is in harmony 
with this grand truth. The common-sense 
of mankind everywhere and in all ages act- 
ually attests its truth. The proposition, 
" Every particular event has a cause," is set 
down by logicians generally as a "first 
truth," because of its universal and nec- 
essary recognition as a truth. And the very 
fact that, in the past unscientific ages of the 
world, the skies, the air, the earth and the 
seas have been peopled with imaginary su- 
pernatural beings, shows that men generally 

127 



128 NO BEGINNING 

and necessarily look for causes for all that 
occurs. 

Polytheism is founded on the fact that 
things have causes ; and all forms of super- 
stition in ail ages, as is clear, have come 
from the necessity of recognizing this truth. 
And it requires but a little reflection to see 
that the doctrine of one supreme super- 
natural being really rests on the same 
foundation. If man could actually have 
conceived of something coming from noth- 
ing one God would have been as unneces- 
sary as a hundred. 

The absolute necessity of being, of an 
eternal something, indeed, is possibly the 
only unanswerable argument made use of 
by theists. This argument does, beyond the 
possibility of refutation, establish the doc- 
trine of a Supreme Being — an eternal self- 
existent Reality ; but it does not prove the 
personality of such being nor make him in 
any true sense of the word supernatural. 
In so far as men have reasoned on the sub- 
ject, an error of logic, as has been shown, has 
laid the foundation for man's belief in the 
personality of Deity, and ignorance of Na- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 129 

tare's laws and methods has clothed him 
with supernatural powers. 

Human knowledge is born of nature and 
is as much her offspring as is the human 
power of digesting food, and it can not get 
away from nature nor before her. 

" In every sand before the tempest hurled 
Lie locked the powers which regulate a world, 
And from each atom human thought may rise 
Witb might to pierce the mysteries of the skies." 

As the balloonist can not go higher than 
the earth's atmosphere in which he floats, 
so human reason can not soar so high as to 
isolate itself from material things. Like the 
aeronaut who looks down on the earth and 
may forget for a time that it is his only per- 
manent resting place, reason looks out on 
nature and seems at times to be its superior, 
but it is not so. 

By means of reason man may rise from a 
simple mental perception of an object to a 
conception of its character, and thence to a 
conception of this first conception, and by 
thus building thought upon thought, climb 
into the domain of abstract truth, and rise 
higher and higher in this seemingly imma- 
terial region. He may use the abstract 



130 NO BEGINNING 

truths thus found as aids in solving other 
practical problems, as the aeronaut uses for 
practical purposes the information gained 
by the extended view his elevation has given 
him ; but he is forced, at the risk of his 
mental destruction, to return to the solid 
foundation of material things, and to find in 
them the real things. 20 



20. Rev. Dr. Thomas says that : "All philosophy and 
learning- comes down to the bottom facts of self, and not 
self." This is true; and hence the whole question of which 
is, strictly speaking, the most real, mind or matter, is in- 
volved in the inquiry : Which is subordinate to the other, 
"'self," or the "not self" ? Now it seems that this has 
been pretty well answered. The attempt has been made to 
show that the conscious mental self, as distinct from the 
body, was only a result or accompaniment of a certain state 
of outward things, and hence could not exist at all were it 
not for outward things. Let us see further as to this Is 
the conscious ego a real thing, or only a state of real 
things? Consciousness, or feeling, has been defined by 
certain writers as a <4 state of awareness " and this appears 
to be a good definition. But if accepted it carries its own 
answer to the above inquiry with it, for states (conditions) 
.are the mOst ephemeral of all things. It certainly would 
mot be^claimed that the condition of a clod of earth, or of 
any imaginable body of matter at a particular time, was a 
more real, substantial thing than the body itself. And if 
not, it cannot be claimed that the conscious mental " self " 
is an entity per se. And if the recognition of the conscious 
liiiental ego is a result of a certain condition of the physical 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 131 

organism, where are the grounds for holding that mind, 
so-called, is superior to matter? Is not the conscious self 
as dependent for its existence as is the clod of dirt for its 
location, form and size? 

But it is not only by logical processes based on our 
knowledge of external physical things that the real insig- 
ficance of the so-called internal ego is made to appear; for 
the same result is arrived at by inward meditation. 

By reason of a general tendency of things to preserve 
themselves, men feel their importance; and in proportion 
as they have much or little of this force, they have much or 
little self-esteem. But when we retire within ourselves 
and begin to search for this wonderful person, this ego, as 
something apart from the clay of which our body, in com- 
mon with all other men, is made, we at once begin to lose 
conceit and to have a less exalted idea of our own individ- 
ual self-conscious importance. This " ego," that we were 
wont to think of as something quite uncommon and supe- 
rior, is not so easily found. It is generally said to reside in 
the brain — possibly because if not kept hidden others 
might see it as it is, and have a less high opinion of it. 
Then it is chased into some particular corner of this organ; 
then, it is lost. It forever eludes the party in search and 
becomes smaller and smaller until it is finally conceived of 
as a mere "point," having neither length, breadth, nor 
thickness. 

If the reader has not done so before, let him try to locate 
his inward conscious self and note the result. 

He will find that he is compelled to locate every thing 
that he thinks about, outside of this " ego." He thinks of 
his feet and hands; he knows the size" of his own head and 
looks mentally into his own brain; every part of the body 
is found to be external to the object of his search. 

Thoughts seem to arise from the brain; it is in his head 



132 NO BEGINNING 

The oft repeated statement that the "in- 
visible things are the real things" is far 
from proving that immaterial things are the 
real things ; matter is only visible in certain 
forms, and it is possible that the greater 
portion of the matter of the universe is 
' ' invisible. " 

Man is a creature of circumstances ; he is 
from nature's mould. He also makes cir- 
cumstances, it is true, but so does the small- 
est insect. Nature is a unit ; each part acts 
on other parts and no one thing is inde- 
pendent of other things. It is a mighty, 
living, eternal fabric — uncreated, indestruc- 
tible, infinite ; and there is no knowledge 
except what is within it and of it. It makes 
no revelations except of its movements ; and 
knowledge is of what is revealed, to wit : 
the changes of nature, the succession of 
events. 



that " ideas " mature; here is the real man, the important 
"I" it is said. But as every part of this organ may be 
the object of thought, and thus must be external to the 
"conscious self," it is clear that the seemingly real 
thought-producing, self-important ego is reduced to a mere 
geometrical point, and is not at all, except as a " state of 
awareness " of the whole organism. 



CHAPTER XII 

FORM AND ORDER ALSO ETERNAL — AN ADEQUATE CAUSE 
IN NATURE FOR ALL THAT OCCURS — THE GREAT AGE OF 
THE EARTH. ETC. 

It is freely admitted by tlie writer that if 
it is a fact that all matter — the universe as a 
whole — was once dead, and had always be- 
fore been so ; if for a period of time that can 
only be expressed as an eternity, all matter 
did, in fact, lie dormant and inactive, then 
in such case the only logical conclusion is, 
that some power outside of itself— and not 
therefore properly to be considered as a part 
of itself — must have set it in motion ; and 
that, therefore, there does exist some forma- 
tive power outside of nature, and a first 
cause of form and order. 

But, as has been shown, this is a conclu- 
sion without argument — an assumption pure 
and simple ; and, an assumption aioay from, 
instead of from, all known facts. 

133 



134 NO BEGINNING 

This last view is, to some extent, an im- 
provement on that which requires us to 
believe that the millions of cubic miles of 
solid stuff that we know exists in the earth 
and other orbs of space — some of which are 
millions of times larger than our globe— was 
produced from nothing; 21 but it is only a 
modification of the latter, and is very largely 
an inheritance from what might be called 
the pre-scientific age of the race. 

A doctrine which, although really resting 
on cause and effect — on succession of events 
— as its foundation, yet declares that neither 
of these once were, could not originate ex- 
cept at that particular period in the growth 
of the race when man was forced by his 
necessities to reason a little ; but could not, 
or was afraid to, reason much. 



21. A faint idea of the vast quantity of solid matter in 
the universe may be had by considering that our earth, one 
of the smaller planets of our solar system, contains over 
250,000,000,000 cubic miles of clay, rock, mineral, etc.; 
that our sun is estimated to be about 1,000,000 times 
larger in solid contents than the earth, and that there are to 
be seen, within the range of our telescopes, nearly 100,000,- 
000 fixed stars, each supposed to be the center of a system 
of worlds. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 135 

It is not surprising, that when mankind 
was in its infancy and when it was not 
known that matter had properties, and that 
causes of things existed in nature, a great 
supernatural personality should have been 
the supposed cause, not only of particular 
phenomena, but of the totality of things. 
But it win doubtless strike the reader as 
strange, that mankind has not weakened in 
its belief in the creation of the universe out 
of nothing, in proportion as it has learned 
that supernatural agency is not concerned 
in the production of particular natural phe- 
nomena. 

It is now, almost universally, taught in 
the sciences of the world that there does 
exist in the matter and forces of nature, act- 
ing in accordance with natural law, a suffi- 
cient cause for each and every present event 
in nature. 

It is now universally admitted to be the 
province of science to push as far back into 
the past as possible, any so-called supernat- 
ural agency ; and year by year such alleged 
causes are becoming more and more remote. 

With the special advocates of the doctrine 



136 NO BEGINNING 

of a first cause, the theological writers and 
thinkers, a short time ago, it was a preva- 
lent belief that the earth actually had a be- 
ginning about six thousand years ago. 

Now it is admitted, by all such writers 
who are put forward as authority, that the 
earth in some form has existed for an indefi- 
nitely long period of time — possibly for 
millions of years — and also, that the whole 
solar system, as it now is, had its origin in 
the operation of natural energies acting in 
accordance with their own inherent laws. 

Since momentum, centrifugal force, and 
attraction are known to exist, and reason- 
ably supposed to be inseparable from mat- 
ter, and the relative positions and motions 
of the various planets have been determined, 
it is the necessary and prevailing view, that 
the earth was once a part of the sun ; and 
therefore owes its origin to a change in the 
location of matter rather than in its crea- 
tion. 

In short, it is now known that the earth 
was not created six thousand years ago ; and 
in fact, not at all, as an earth. 

As the planet which we inhabit, it was 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 137 

formed, not out of nothing — as stated by 
Bible commentators — but out of matter and 
elements previously existing. 

Matter has been found to be indestruct- 
ible. Force has been demonstrated to be 
persistent, correlated and eternal. Summer 
and winter, life and death, it is known, suc- 
ceed each other ; and continuous succession 
is the acknowledged order of things. 

No well-informed person now attributes 
an epidemic, a storm, an earthquake, or an 
eclipse, to the special act of a supreme per- 
son ; but all these things are known to be 
effects of prior natural causes. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY UNDERLYING THE BELIEF 
IN A CREATION OR FIRST CAUSE POINTED OUT 

Why, then, is it that it is still held so 
strenuously that the totality of things is 
the result of a former and long ago special 
act of a person ? 

This inquiry leads to the consideration of 
another and very important question : 

Is there a fundamental fallacy underlying 
the logic of the world on the great question 
of the origin of things ? 

The writer has great tolerance for the 
mistakes of men, and much confidence in 
their honesty, generally ; and hence, if 
erroneous doctrines exist for a long period 
of time, it is, in his opinion, due largely to 
unintentional errors in the reasoning of the 
teachers of such doctrines. 

From this consideration, he has asked 
himself the question, Is there fallacy in the 






THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 139 

popular manner of dealing with the subject 
of the origin of the universe ? 

He, long ago, thought it strange that 
there ever should have been a time when 
nothing, throughout illimitable space, ex- 
isted but one infinite person ; and that for 
unnumbered ages he should have remained 
alone, and then, as if changing His mind, 
have spoken all the worlds and systems of 
worlds into existence. 22 



22. The utter unreasonableness of the belief that the 
universe is a "creation" is made to appear by such 
thoughts as these, which come under the head of what is 
called the reductio ad absurdum method of argument: If 
there ever was a time when nothing but " God," in the 
theological sense, existed, and at some time in the past he 
created all things outside of himself, then it may be said 
that *' God " existed from eternity until the time of crea- 
tion all alone; that, for a period of duration that can only 
be spoken of as an eternity, he had nothing to do, and 
nothing even to think about but himself; that he exhibited 
no evidence of his power, or wisdom, or love, and, so far 
as any evidence existed of the fact, was devoid of attri- 
butes. And that in such case God is not uncnangeable; for 
either must it be true that he changed his mind when he 
decided to create a universe, or else gave the subject no 
thought prior to that time; or, as the only other alterna- 
tive, that he spent all his time before this event in getting 
ready to perform the great feat of making a universe out 
of nothing. In neither of these cases can it be said, that 
be is unchangeable; and in tiie latter case, God is necessa- 



140 NO BEGINNING 

He has thought it passing strange, that as 
cause and effect exist now they should not 
always have existed. 

He has wondered why it was that relation, 
and condition, and adaptation, having existed 
for thousands of years, they should all be 
lost and merged into an unconditioned as 
we look into the more distant past. 

And he has been sorely perplexed when 
he saw all nature, and all reason, teaching 
lasting succession, and reflected that, ac- 
cording to the belief of the world, all this 
teaching was a delusion — that this grand 
and seemingly universal fact, is only a fact 
of the present, and was not so in time past." 



rily conceived of as a growth, and not as the absolute and 
omnipotent being that the true Deity must be. 

To many such absurdities is the reflecting mind led when 
trying to bring his general knowledge into harmony with 
the doctrine of a beginning, or creation. Even ministers, 
occasionally, when stating strongly some proposition, un- 
wittingly expose the absurdity of their first theological 
premise; as illustrated by the following quotation from a 
late sermon of a prominent Chicago divine: " Love we say 
is an attribute of God, yet it seems to me that it must be an 
incomplete attribute until it has awakened an answering, 
corresponding love, and I can imagine the lonely and desolate 
being God ivas before he created a universe to love him." 

23. When a candid investigator yearning for truth if 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 141 

He had been taught that matter could not 
be destroyed — that it only changed its form; 
and yet he was told that this is only true, 
looking into the future ; that while it is 
true that, looking one way, matter always 
will be ; yet, in looking in the opposite di- 
rection, it was not at all, until quite re- 
cently. 

Why matter should be so transitory and 
yet so everlasting, and why, when it is in 
fact indestructible, in logic it should be so 
easily annihilated — these, and other similar 
queries, that arose in his mind, shook his 
faith in old beliefs and started him in search 
of the fallacy, if one exists, in the reasoning 
that led to such strange conclusions. 

It is admitted, as it must be, that particu- 
lar things and events have causes ; but, in 
the opinion of the writer, the great mistake 
in the reasoning that gives to the great 
whole of things a "beginning," lies simply 

confronted with such unthinkable, old theological dogmas 
as are here referred to, and reflects that they have been the 
common belief of the great majority of mankind for hun- 
dreds of years, it seems to be well nigh true, as Emerson 
expresses it, that "The centuries are conspirators against 
the sanity and majesty of the soul." 



142 NO BEGINNING 

in viewing this totality, this aggregation of 
all things, as a thing or event. 

The reasoning of the world that has re- 
sulted in the almost universal belief in a 
first cause may all be condensed into the 
following brief 

SYLLOGISM : 

Major premise, 

Every event or thing has a cause ; 
Minor premise, 

The universe — the totality of things — is a 
thing or event ; 
Conclusion, 

Therefore, the totality of things had a 
cause. 

That this may clearly be seen to embrace 
the substance of all mental processes lying 
back of the popular belief in question, let 
the reader, again, be reminded that the idea 
of the relation of cause and effect underlies 
all judgments on the subject of the origin of 
things. 

It is not meant, of course, that every be- 
liever in a first cause consciously constructs 
just this formal argument ; but whenever 
the inquiry, whence came things ? has oc- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 143 

curred to the mind, and the mind has acted 
at all in giving an answer to the query, it 
has, necessarily, used, in substance, this 
same intellectual process ; for the best possi- 
ble reason, to wit, that there was no other 
method to use. 

If it was not known that bodies have ex- 
tension, no one would ever attempt to meas- 
ure a body. And it is only because sub- 
stances generally have size that the mind 
thinks of extension in connection with them. 
And it is equally evident, as has before been 
shown, that it is only because certain par- 
ticular things have causes that causes are 
sought for other things. 

As well try to compute the size or distance 
of some far-away heavenly body, without 
employing the fundamental principles of 
arithmetic, as to seek for the origin of 
things as a whole, without having recourse 
to the fundamental idea that is made the 
first premise in this syllogism. . 

But is there fallacy in this argument ? 

Is the conclusion of the syllogism correct 
and necessary ? 

If both of the premises are really true 



144 JSTO BEGINNING 

there is, of course, no escaping the full force 
of the conclusion. It is in such case a true 
statement beyond question. 

And the first premise being admitted, it 
follows, that if there is fault in the argu- 
ment it lies in the second or minor premise, 
which declares the totality of things to be a 
" thing or event." 

Now, in order to make a valid argument 
the words "thing" and "event" must be 
used in the same sense in both premises — 
they must represent the same mental con- 
ception. 

But the writer asserts that the "totality 
of things " is not and can not be a "thing " 
or "event" in the same sense and meaning 
that these words necessarily have in the first 
premise ; and that the argument is, there- 
fore, defective and the conclusion worthless. 

He will proceed to prove this statement in 
the following manner : 

By the word thing, event, phenomenon or 
similar word, that might be used in the 
major premise is meant a particular thing, 
as compared with other things ; one thing out 
of more or many ; a part, an individual. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 145 

The idea of relation and condition, and, 
hence, of something outside the thing con- 
sidered, is a part of the very conception on 
which is based the judgment, "every event 
or thing has a cause/' 

This is so evident that the proposition, 
" every event or thing has a cause," may, 
without any violence to its meaning, be 
stated as follows : 

Every event or thing is the result of, and 
exists only because there are, other things 
or events. 

And, therefore, the words "thing" and 
" event," used in the major premise, mean a 
part only of the totality of things. 

But these words can not have this mean- 
ing in the minor premise. 

It requires no argument to prove that the 
totality of things is not apart of any thing. 

The whole of things can never be at the 
same time a part of those things. 

Therefore, It is most evident that this 

ARGUMENT IS FALLACIOUS, IN THAT IT AS- 
SUMES THAT THE GREAT WHOLE OF THINGS 

is a thing in the same sense in which 

THIS WORD IS USED IN THE FIRST PREMISE. 



146 no beginning 

And it is equally evident that the 
totality of things does not demand a 
cause, because particular things must 
have and do have causes. 

Again, all arguments based on such a syl- 
logism for the purpose of proving a begin- 
ning for things or of succession, are absurd ; 
for the reason that if the universe as a whole 
is regarded as a thing or event, the argument 
seeks to establish the truth of the proposi- 
tion: "All things— the totality of things 
included as one thing — have causes." The 
answer can not then be : There is one and 
only one uncaused cause — a first cause. 



CHAPTER XIV 

BELIEF IN A CAUSE FOR THE TOTALITY OF THINGS IR- 
RATIONAL AND UNNECESSARY 

From the foregoing train of reasoning, 
the conclusion is irresistible that it is clearly 
irrational to talk of, or try to conceive of, a 
cause for the totality of things. 

Particular things have relation — have 
causes ; but not so of the great whole. 

The reasoning that would demand such a 
cause is very superficial. We not only 
assert that things have causes because 
of known relation of particular things to 
each other — because, we see one phenome- 
non following another — but we do so for 
the reason that the same judgment is, sub- 
stantially, that things can not come of or 
from nothing. 

And if things can not come of, or be cre- 
ated from nothing, then can not the universe 



147 



148 NO BEGINNING 

as a whole have a cause, as outside the 
whole is nothing. 

All things, in particular, are related to all 
other things. Each thing is produced or 
caused by some other thing or things, but 
the sum total of things that are or ever have 
been or will be in the future, conceived of as 
a unit — whether infinite or limited as to 
space— is not related, not dependent, and if 
not, is not caused. 

It has now been shown that no logical, 
fair or reasonable argument can be built up 
to prove a cause for the totality of things. 
But let the absolute futility of any such 
attempt be made still more plain, if possible. 

All reasoning, all argument, like material 
structures, must have a foundation ; and the 
foundation of reason is conception based on 
sense and consciousness. 

Now, the senses deal with things; con- 
sciousness with what is perceived through 
the senses. 

It is clear that the only antecedent of all 
things is non-entity— a complete absence of 
anything upon which the mental faculties 
can exercise themselves ; and that, there- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 149 

fore, it is perfectly absurd to try to build 
any valid argument pointing to non-entity 
as the antecedent of what now is. 

Again, negatives are not to be proven ; 
and if it is illogical to attempt to prove a 
particular negative, it is supremely so to try 
to establish the sum of all negations — non- 
entity itself. 

Things are now, we know. 

If ever no thing was, we cannot, in the 
very nature of our being, know this to be so. 

Finally: wherein is it necessary or even 
desirable to attempt to get back of all 
things % 

The only reason why the mind sometimes 
attempts to do so, is to find a " beginning" ; 
but why try, mentally, to destroy the uni- 
verse in order to have it created % 



CHAPTER XV 

THE DOCTRINE OP ETERNAL SUCCESSION IS MENTALLY 
RESTFUL AND SATISFYING. 

The doctrine of eternal or endless succes- 
sion — the view that affirms that the totality 
of things in some form always existed, is 
restful and mentally satisfying. 

It is the doctrine of reality. 

It is the only doctrine that is in complete 
harmony with the natural mental apprehen- 
sion that induces man to look for causes of 
things ; in that it points the mind always to 
a complete and adequate cause for all that 
at any particular time exists. 

It answers, in a general way, all the re- 
quirements of reason whenever she inquires 
after the cause of things, by pointing to 
other things as the cause of any particular 
thing, and to all things in the past as the 
cause of the aggregate of things existing at 
the time of the inquiry. 

150 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 151 

m 

In this view there is mental contentment 
as to the stability of things in general ; be- 
cause they are found to rest on eternal 
material reality, instead of having as their 
foundation a bottomless void — or, at most, 
nothing but the will of an immaterial personal 
Creator, who need never have made anything 
nor need, except as suits his own supreme 
pleasure, permit anything longer to be. 

It is true that this doctrine not only 
affirms endless being, but also perpetual 
change and dissolution of particular things. 

But the mind does not "shrink back on 
herself and startle " at change, when it is, at 
the same time, assured that change is not 
" destruction.' ' 



CHAPTER XVI 



A. SELF-EXISTENT UNIVERSE THE FACT OF ALL FACTS, 
AND THE VERITABLE AND ONLY REAL DEITY 

That the universe is, is the fact of all facts, 
of both sense and consciousness. 

That it was in the immediate past, is 
equally certain. 

And, that it was at any conceivable time 
in the past, is, as has been shown, a neces- 
sary sequence of the fact that it is now, and 
was in time just passed. 

And, if it was at any conceivable time in 
the past, it always was, so far as human rea- 
son is competent to pronounce. 

Science, in truth, teaches that matter and 
force always existed ; and logic not only 
fails to shake the mighty truth, but cannot 
even find a fulcrum for her lever of disturb- 
ance — a footing on which to stand to attack 
the foundation fact. 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 153 

Our powers of perception and sense do not 
ask any other doctrine, for they deal only 
with things existing. 

Consciousness is content, for she feels only 
things and their forces and relations. 

Desire is averse to meddling with the 
question — is loath to antagonize the great 
truth ; for, like nature itself, she u abhors a 
vacuum," and looks not towards non-entity, 
neither in the future nor in the past. 

And the mind, in the aggregate of its 
capacities, when having weighed the ques- 
tion, in the light of reason and from an in- 
tellectual standpoint, accepts, as the writer 
firmly believes, the doctrine, that the uni- 
verse, self -existent and eternal, is the true 
solution of the great question of the origin 
of things ; and rests in the belief, that such 
self -existent universe of matter and mind, 
with its successions and changes, its prodig- 
ious forces and inexorable laws, 24 constitutes 



24. The uniformity of Nature's methods is not only 
verified by the known facts of science, and forms the 
foundation for all further scientific research, but it is at 
once, in reality, the great principle underlying the validity 
of all knowledge, Knowledge of whatever kind really 



154 NO BEGINNING 

the Omnipotent and Omnipresent entity— 
the "All in All" — the veritable and only 
real Deity. 



rests upon the fact, that like results uniformly follow like 
conditions of things. 

Perception underlies all knowledge, but perceptions are 
necessary results of conditions of the perceiving organism. 
If Nature were capricious, or if her operations were being 
interfered with by some being outside herself, so that 
certain definite results did not uniformly arise from cer- 
tain conditions, neither perceptions nor inferences of the 
mind could be relied on as valid, and as a consequence the 
outgivings of the mental faculties would be unreliable, and 
all knowledge would become mere conjecture. 

And it is perhaps one of the most marvelous demon- 
strations of the power of truth to finally assert itself that 
could be named, to reflect that, notwithstanding nearly 
the whole family of man have, during past ages of the 
world, steadfastly denied the scientific doctrine above 
referred to, and have solemnly believed that it was the 
greatest of fundamental errors, yet it has pushed itself for- 
ward with constantly increasing pressure, until now, in the 
refulgence of its far-reaching light, we can look back and 
see that it has been, all along, not only a truth, but the 
real, though unconscious, basis of all the knowledge that 
man has ever possessed, 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE THEOLOGICAL PYRAMID— A MONUMENT OP SUPER 
STITION, AND HOW IT HAS BEEN BUILT ON THE FUNDA- 
MENTAL FALLACY POINTED OUT IN THIS WORK 

It has been shown in the foregoing pages 
that the error of logic underlying the pop- 
ular religious doctrines of the world is to be 
found in the assumption that the universe 
as a whole is a thing or event. It is clear 
that if the totality of things past, present 
and future, is thought of as an event, that 
in such case a cause existed for such total- 
ity ; for every event must have a cause. 
The object of these additional reflections is 
to make it clearer, possibly, than it would 
otherwise be, to the reader, how it is that 
the fallacy pointed out is, as it has been 
called, a "fundamental fallacy," 

It is not difficult to see the line of reason- 
ing that has led up to certain general doc- 
trines of the churches, such as the fall of 

155 



156 KO BEGINNING 

man, book revelations, etc. For, once ad- 
mit the " creation" theory, admit that all 
things were made from nothing, and it is 
possible for the mind, by successive steps, to 
reach at least many of the conclusions held 
to be essential to a good orthodox faith. 
Indeed, some of the principal doctrines of 
the churches are necessary truths, if the 
above position is granted; and "it goes 
without saying " that a person, having once 
accepted such a monstrous absurdity as 
true, is not in a position to reason with any 
degree of boldness on kindred subjects ; for 
no sooner is this position granted than the 
"supernatural" and "unknowable" con- 
front the would-be inquirer and voicelessly 
but constantly tell him that, on so-called 
theological questions, the greatest safety 
lies in the least amount of thinking. 

But still he thinks in spite of himself, but 
thinks on the basis of the assumption that 
this false logic has given him. 

1st. He assumes that there was a " crea- 
tion"; that, back of all things of which he 
can take cognizance, back of matter, back 
of motion, back of change and back of na 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 157 

ture herself, there was an unknowable some 
thing ; and, therefore, that there was a be- 
ginning, a "first cause" And assuming 
this to be true, he is forced to conclude — 

2nd. That this anterior something is the 
author, the artificer of all that followed, 
and is necessarily a personal supernatural 
Deity; for it follows that, if there was a 
" beginning" of things, there does exist a 
supreme personal Creator of all things ; and, 
this person having made all things in a par- 
ticular way, it follows that he can change 
them at will, and might have made them in 
some other way, and hence it follows nec- 
essarily that — 

3rd. God has likes and dislikes; has, like 
man, a wish and a will concerning all that 
occurs ; and, if so, man being, in his own 
estimation, of course, the most important 
work of G-od, it follows— 

4th. That man is the subject of God's 
special regard and solicitude, and hence — 

5th. Man must have been "created" a 
pure being. But he is not now such, and, 
therefore — 

6th. Man has fallen. And if man was 



158 NO BEGINNING 

once a pure and happy creature but has 
fallen from this condition in which God 
placed him, it follows that — 

7th. Man has a free will. And, if man 
is free to will what he wills and to do as he 
pleases, regardless of circumstances ; and 
has by reason of this freedom once fallen 
from a former high estate, he necessarily 
needs help to enable him to regain this once 
happy condition ; and, inasmuch as man is 
himself the only intelligence known to man, 
at least the only visible speaking intelli- 
gence, this helper who is to teach him how 
to regain his lost paradise must be a man. 
But he must at the same time be a man of 
powers not common to men — must be a man 
full of the secrets and powers of Deity him- 
self ; and from this line of thought comes— 

8th. The belief in a Saviour, part man 
and part God. But men all die ; they live 
to teach, in person, but a few years ; and as 
the God-man proves not to be an exception 
in this respect, the will of Deity must be 
given to the world in a permanent form ; 
and hence the necessity seems to arise for 
6 ' revelation, ' ' and — 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 159 

9th. An inspired book or Bible contain- 
ing the will of God in the matter of man's 
actions. And, if a certain writing or system 
of writings is accepted as containing the will 
of G-od, and experience proves that this 
writing is understood in different ways by 
different men, it clearly becomes a reason- 
able thing, if not a necessity, that — 

10th. Some church or other perpetual 
organization should be established to act as 
an infallible interpreter of this book. But 
all organizations must have a head ; and 
thus the climax of the absurdity is reached 
— the very cap-stone of a great monument 
of superstition is put in place. And mil- 
lions of good, well-meaning people have con- 
cluded that — 

11th. The Pope as the mouth-piece of the 
churchy is an infallible interpreter of the 
written word. And all on account of hav- 
ing admitted that false and fatal premise 
which asserts that the grand system of 
nature that we behold around us is not, in 
substance, an ever-existing, but a created 
system. 

Now it is not claimed that each of these 



100 WO BEGINNING 

positions follows as a logical necessity from 
the preceding one, but that each is — or with 
some show of consistency may be claimed 
to be — a reasonable probability to be derived 
from the former position ; and it is by just 
such reasoning as is here briefly outlined 
that the Pope of Rome to-day justifies his 
pretensions to dictate to the great family of 
man what each shall think and believe on 
ethical subjects. And it is by just such a 
line of thought that orthodox Protestant 
4 'divines" attempt to defend the cardinal 
doctrines of their churches. The principal 
difference between Catholic and Protestant 
is that the latter stops short of the full and 
logical realization of this line of argument. 
The reasoning of Catholic and Protestant 
coincides up to our Ninth Proposition, 
where the conclusion that the Bible contains 
the revealed will of God is arrived at ; but 
at this point they part company ; the Cath- 
olic consistently holding that it is absurd to 
think that God would give the world a book 
containing his will and not also furnish an 
infallible interpreter of the book. The 
Catholic says that great confusion must re- 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 161 

suit from permitting each individual to 
translate and interpret for himself this 
written word ; and the great multiplication 
of Protestant sects has demonstrated the 
truth of this position. 

The writer insists that if the universe is 
conceived of as a "created" thing the ex- 
istence of a personal, supernatural Deity 
follows as a necessity ; and that as long as 
this latter position is admitted as a valid 
premise it will be well-nigh impossible to 
escape just such dangerous and absurd 
conclusions as the Catholic doctrine of an 
infallible church, with a head having di- 
vinely ordained power to dictate to the 
world of mankind what it shall think and 
what it may teach on all questions involv- 
ing the rightfulness of human actions. 

How the Catholic doctrine of an infallible 
Pope as the head of an infallible church, 
and other so-called cardinal church dogmas 
are connected with the old doctrine of a 
" First Cause " has thus been indicated, but 
may appear still more clearly to the reader 
by the following illustration in the form of a 
pyramid. 



162 tfO BEGINNING 

If the proposition at the base is thought 
to be true, the one at the apex may also be 
held as true, and, indeed, most likely will 
continue to be held by the masses as a 
truth ; for whatever is lacking in the logic 
of the structure is fully made up by the 
superstition and terror created by some of 
the fundamental doctrines. 










THE THEOLOGICAL PYRAMID, 



CHAPTER XVIII 



CONCLUSION 



If the reader concludes from a perusal of 
the foregoing pages that there is something 
radically wrong with the doctrines of the 
dominant religious systems of the world, he 
need not be either frightened or surprised ; 
for while this common-sense method of 
treating the subject may be new, he can rest 
assured that the thoughts of this little work 
are by no means new. They are but such 
natural, candid thoughts, as must, in the 
very nature of the human mind, have been 
common to many thousands of persons, es- 
pecially since the discovery of the funda- 
mental truths of natural science. In reality 
the doctrine of the eternity of matter and 
force, and of the ever-existing activity of 
nature herein laid down, is but a necessary 
deduction from the truths now taught in all 



164 



THE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 165 

our higher institutions of learning, that 
matter has properties and is indestructible. 

If matter is indestructible, common-sense 
says it is eternal ; and if it has properties 
now, such properties are also eternal. For 
it follows, that if matter cannot be anni- 
hilated it cannot have been created ; and if 
it now possesses inherent properties or ten- 
dencies it must either always have possessed 
them, or such properties have been imparted 
to or impressed on matter at some time in 
the past. But the latter alternative, which 
makes of common matter a teachable thing, 
is unthinkable ; and the conclusion must be 
that not only matter, but matter with cer- 
tain characteristics, is an uncreated and self- 
existent reality. 

As to any fear that may come to readers 
in regard to the safety of society, in the 
event of the general acceptance of the grand 
scientific fact herein brought to their atten- 
tion, it is enough to suggest that this truth 
is itself one of the products of the advancing 
civilization of the age in which we live ; and 
it is not to be feared but that the tree being 
good the fruit will be good also. In a cer- 



166 NO BEGINNING 

tain sense there is deep wisdom in the old 
saying, "The fool hath said in his heart, 
there is no God "; bnt more profound still is 
the fact being made manifest by modern 
scientific thought, that God is not a super- 
natural ' ' Creator ' ' of nature, but nature it- 
self with all iU infinite fullness and glory, 



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